Is rescuing the EU's emissions trading system impossible? Despite the substantial reform in 2008, subsequent problems of allowance surplus and a low carbon price have spurred new efforts to reform the system for the 2013–2020 phase. But these efforts have met resistance both among member...

This article examines the recent changes of three central EU climate and energy policies: the revised Emissions Trading Directive (ETS); the Renewables Directive (RES); and internal energy market (IEM) policy. An increasing transference of competence to EU level institutions, and hence...

The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is the cornerstone of EU climate policy, a grand policy experiment, as the first and largest international emissions trading system in the world. In this article, we seek to provide a broad overview of the initiation, decision-making and implementation of...

The EU emissions trading scheme has been characterized as one of the most farreaching and radical environmental policies for many years, and "the new grand policy experiment." Given the EU's earlier resistance to this market-based instrument with no international track record and with US...

The article compares the interplay between soft law institutions and those based on hard law in international efforts to protect the North Sea, reduce transboundary air pollution, and discipline fisheries subsidies. Our cases confirm that ambitious norms are more easily achieved in soft law...

This article explains why the significant changes in the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) for the 2013-2020 phase were adopted in 2008. The combination of a more stringent EU-wide cap, allocation of emission allowances for payment, and limits on imports of credits from third countries have...

In the late 1980s/early 1990s the concept of leadership was introduced in the study of international regimes to describe the role negotiating parties some-times would take on to craft agreement. The concept seemed to grasp an essential feature of multilateral cooperative efforts: that parties...

The United States, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is not going to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in the foreseeable future. Yet, a number of countries have decided to stay on the Kyoto track. Four main explanations for this apparent puzzle are considered. The first is that remaining...

While most scholars agree that NGOs make a difference in global environmental politics, there has been little systematic work that looks at the actual influence NGOs have on policy outcomes. This paper looks to shed some new light on the question of NGO effectiveness through an evaluation of the...