This article reviews recent developments in global ‘carbon governance’ - the set of rules, policies, mechanisms and institutions developed to manage and mitigate climate change.The author focuses on three emerging trends that result from stalemates in intergovernmental negotiations, but may also further complicate decision-making:

uncertainties and complexities in global carbon governance have given rise to a stronger role of actors beyond the nation state
this new emergence of multiple-actor governance, along with spatial and functional interdependencies, has stimulated the emergence of new mechanisms of global carbon governance, namely transnational regimes, transnational public policy networks and transnational markets
the overall complexity of global carbon governance, along with the stakes involved and resulting negotiation stalemates, has led to a fragmentation of the policy system with multiple spheres of authority that require new types of interplay management.

The paper concludes that global carbon governance is unprecedented in its problem structure that combines new types and degrees of uncertainty, interdependence and impacts. This makes the negotiation and development of new institutions and modes of governance conflictive and tedious, but creates at the same time room for new ideas and innovations in governance.The author poses the question: How do these new modes of governance in the climate realm — which are essentially governance beyond the central governments as key actors — relate to the remaining role of the state? He suggests that it might well be that networks, markets and partnerships that are pushed forward by non-state actors are a direct response to the complexities of the climate problem, which governments can no longer handle without strong non-state involvement. However, it may well be possible that once intergovernmental consensus on the key elements of a strong global regime emerges, parallel networks, institutions and parameters that have evolved in recent years beyond the state might lose their influence and be surpassed by stronger public regulation again.