It is difficult to identify another policy tool that has been either more celebrated or dismissed in recent decades as carbon pricing. Long heralded by advocates as a silver bullet to confront climate change, it has increasingly been panned by critics as a political non-starter that distracts from serious climate mitigation. This paper reviews the last half-decade of global climate policy and carbon pricing experience. It examines significant political challenges to pricing adoption in nations including the United States. However, it also demonstrates that carbon pricing can play an increasingly significant role in supporting decarbonization in such cases as the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Canada, part of an ensemble of policies rather than a solo act. Such cases may expand in coming years through stronger links between pricing and trade policy, continued shifting of pricing revenues toward green investment programs, and extension of pricing to short-lived climate