Full Title: From Green Goals to Black Ink: Reforming Carbon Accounting for a New Era of Competition
Author(s): Jia-Shen Tsai
Publisher(s): Niskanen Center
Publication Date: October 15, 2025
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
As global rules on carbon emission shift from voluntary pledges to enforceable standards, the United States faces a pivotal decision: how to count carbon in a way that protects industrial competitiveness, reduces compliance costs, and supports its position in global trade. The current mainstream framework, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP), was not built for this task. Designed two decades ago to support broad corporate disclosures, it has become more focused on reporting than on helping firms manage emissions in real time. Its reliance on estimates and industry averages makes it ill-suited for tracking emissions through complex supply chains or verifying product-level performance in export markets.
A system that meets today’s demands, this paper argues, must satisfy four essential criteria: credibility, comparability, scalability, and interoperability. Credibility means every data point must reflect a real emission event, not a modeled estimate. Comparability ensures carbon data can be used across firms, sectors, and borders. Scalability allows the system to accommodate small firms and global supply chains alike. Interoperability ensures emissions data can plug into both private and public tools for compliance, disclosure, and investment.