This chapter proposes a new Chinese policy process theory in a consensus policy-making model by analyzing the practice of central-local relations with a sample of eight local pilots and one national pilot of the carbon emissions trading scheme and comparing different academic theories of central-local relations. Based on an empirical examination of global governance and central-local relations under the strategic policy goal of carbon neutrality and carbon peaking, this paper investigates the evolution of the consensus policy-making model of China’s policy process at three levels: (1) the consensus on the policy goal evolves from a focus on domestic reforms to an integrated order of global and domestic governance, reflected from the impacts of central government on the consensus at local levels; (2) the consensus policy-making mechanism, once on the basis of policy coordination and other mechanisms, has developed a policy innovation-oriented one in a model of “mobilization/empowerment—pilot innovation/feedback—diffusion,” reflected from the impacts of local consensus on national consensus; and, (3) in terms of consensus variables system, it is compatible with the diversity of policy solutions by normalizing institutional construction, adapting the plurality of policy goals by normalizing national governance, and absorbing policy risks by normalizing social governance, for the general purpose of promoting the formation of a normative order between central and local governments and between government and markets, and realizing multiple optimal solutions for China’s policy process. Finally, suggestions are made on the domestic carbon trading pilot in the next phrase and the convergence of China’s carbon trading scheme with the global carbon market.