A Bibliometric Analysis of Carbon Finance and Carbon Markets: Research Trends and Future Directions

Carbon finance and carbon markets have attracted significant attention worldwide as effective means of mitigating climate change. This paper employs bibliometric analysis as a research method and utilizes Citespace and Vosviewer software to conduct visual analysis of literature on carbon finance and carbon markets from the Web of Science and Scopus databases since 1992. By interpreting knowledge maps such as publication volume and keywords, we analyze the hot topics and evolution path of research on carbon finance and carbon markets. Our findings reveal a rapid increase in the number of publications related to carbon finance and carbon markets, with China leading in terms of publication volume followed by the United States and the United Kingdom. We identify major research directions including carbon market policy and carbon trading mechanism, research on risks in carbon finance and carbon markets, studies on carbon market spillover effects, as well as the design, pricing, and price forecasting of carbon financial instruments. Analysis of the development of carbon finance and carbon markets shows three stages: policy formulation and content determination, establishment of carbon market systems, and improvement of carbon market mechanisms. Finally, we summarize the future research agenda for carbon finance and carbon markets.