Climate change has been a challenge to international diplomacy and to Global Climate Governance (GCG) involving governments, companies and civil society. It is fundamental to understand the role of the global carbon market in GCG, analyzing the opportunities and challenges of this instrument for the post-Kyoto period. This paper discusses the opportunities and challenges of the global carbon market as a mechanism of GCG. This study is part of an interdisciplinary and multi-institutional research project about Global Climate Governance and Carbon Market coordinated by the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil. It is based on a literature review of national and international academic publications, as well as institutional documents from the United Nations International Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC) and UNFCCC.