Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from maritime transport is an urgent topic. Some regional emissions trading systems (ETSs), buoyed by the globalized market-based measures (MBMs) plan of the International maritime organization, have initially assessed the feasibility of including maritime emissions under compliance obligations. However, including maritime emissions (which are interjurisdictional) in the existing ETSs is controversial, and globalized maritime MBMs remain elusive. Therefore, this study designed a joint bilateral maritime carbon market (BMCM) model based on the European ETS (EU-ETS) and Quebec ETS (QC-ETS). The carbon costs, speed optimization, and marginal abatement costs of three container routes under BMCM were analyzed. The results show that this Euro-American linkage achieves adequate emission coverage on specific routes and generates acceptable carbon costs for charterers. This study yields a positive result for the equal division of ETSs' exercising competence in cross-regional maritime transport and provides evidence for sector-specific ETS links based on quantitative analysis.
Keywords: Euro-American cooperation; cap-and-trade; carbon market linkage; carbon reduction; emission trading systems; maritime carbon emissions; maritime transport management; market-based measures.