Development of eco-friendly goods and services, of late, has been perceived as a fundamental principle for sustaining demand-driven industrialization. The global economy is steadily moving towards the next generation of industrialization courtesy green technological innovation. However, Carbon Emission Trading (CET) has been a major threat to the global march towards green economy. This study offers a case-based analysis of CET in terms of its genesis, evolution, and current practices to expose the limitations of such extreme free market environmentalism and its negative impact on the emerging green technological eco-system. CET has strengthened corporate control over environment and is a violator of environmental justice and, in turn, has come out as a nemesis of the ambitious green technological innovation. The major socio-economic actors who are supposed to push the green growth discourse, strategy, and action will be trapped in the new nihilistic competition unleashed by CET and the brown economy will continue to prevail upon the global technological innovation. © 2020 IJSTR.