Dennis West (University of Oxford) has posted Agreeing on Accounting: The Emergence of Carbon Accounting in the Paris Agreement on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This article sheds light on different types of expertise and evidence that shape the organization of global law and policy. Using the case of the Paris Climate Agreement, I investigate how carbon accounting emerged and why it stabilized until today. Taking a genealogical approach, I trace the accounting provisions in the treaty to their institutional origins by analysing relevant documentary data. The results suggest that the emergence of carbon accounting follows a cyclical process in two ways. First, the iterative negotiation about normative meanings is more contested and less technical than often portrayed by the actors in the field. Second, this process can be explained in terms of connectivity between normative meanings and the sources of evidence by which scientific, professional, and governance expertise enable agreement on accounting. Building on those findings, I propose a cyclical emergence model to explain the connectivity between normative meanings and organizational processes. This article contributes to our understanding of the interaction between organizations, law, and accounting.
