Recent literature describing climate change governance at the international level emphasizes the need for more comprehensive domestic action to reduce carbon emissions. To date, China’s voluntary carbon reduction schemes indicate a more centralized approach in collaboration at the ministerial level, but also suggest a piecemeal voluntary model at the local level. Fragmented climate change governance at the local level opens the door to develop laws and regulations to explore relevant theoretical positions and implementation in the field of carbon reduction. The development also generates more complex issues around linkage and compatibility among the schemes at the regional level to achieve the overall national target of carbon reduction in China.