JOURNAL: Towards a unified carbon accounting landscape
Summary
Authors:
Lewis J. McDonald
Jose Luis Hernandez Galvan
Chukwudi Emelue
Ariane S. S. Pinto
Neha Mehta
Taofeeq Ibn-Mohammed
Thomas Fender
Jonathan Radcliffe
Alok Choudhary
Marcelle McManus
University of Bath
University of Birmingham
University of Warwick
Towards a unified carbon accounting landscape
Philosophical transactions of the royal society A
September 2024
This paper examines the challenges of carbon accounting, a crucial tool for reducing emissions and tackling climate change. Currently, different methods make it difficult to compare carbon footprints across products, businesses, and regions. Some approaches focus only on local emissions, which can lead to decisions that lower global carbon levels but increase local emissions. This can unfairly impact industrial clusters as they try to reach net zero. The paper analyses these issues and highlights the need for a more unified and transparent system, ensuring fairer carbon accounting that supports both industry and global climate justice.