Scientometric review of emissions trading systems (ETS) research worldwide

In recent years, there has been growing interest in the field of carbon trading as a means of mitigating the effects of climate change. A three-stage science mapping approach, comprising bibliometric search, scientometric analysis, and qualitative analysis was employed to enhance understanding of research studies in the field of emissions trading. 12,337 documents published in the Scopus database, comprising keywords, authors, articles, and their respective sources were analyzed. From the findings, recent studies have mostly concentrated on climate change, emissions trading, greenhouse gas, carbon trading, and carbon sequestration. The normalized citation rates for articles pertaining to emissions trading were found to be the highest. Research focused on environmental science and energy received the highest amount of studies on carbon trading schemes, while the arts and humanities received the least amount of research in carbon trading. Moreover, it was observed that there was a lack of study emphasis on trade-environment relations, tariff structure, process optimization, and life-cycle assessment. This study is arguably the first attempt to systematically map ETS research applications in various scientific fields and, in doing so, provides current state-of-the-art research and future research agendas.