EU ETS and voluntary carbon markets: key features and current challenges

Abstract Carbon emissions trading constitutes an important instrument in reaching global climate goals and enhancing energy transition. This brief provides an illustration of the EU ETS and Voluntary Carbon Markets (VCMs), focusing on their main features and some of their current challenges from a regulatory point of view. Issues pertaining to systems’ linkage and carbon leakage in the framework of the EU ETS as well as ensuring the overall project quality in the framework of VCMs have to be successfully faced for such schemes to be effective. The special issues of the interaction between the EU ETS and VCM schemes and their impact on the energy sector are ultimately highlighted.