Accounting issues on greenhouse gas emissions : a comparative case study of Australian, United States and Spanish GAAP

Abstract

The emissions trading scheme has emerged as the main mechanism to deal with the global problem of climate change. The frustrated attempt to create a standard on greenhouse gas emissions has led to that currently there is a great diversity in accounting practices. This paper aims to explore the national standards that have been developed by some countries in order to solve the problems of registration and evaluation of units of carbon in the financial statements in their own territory, as well as to present a case study based on local regulations. This case study will show that accounting diversity can have a serious impact on the decision-making capacity of external users (shareholders, lenders, suppliers, regulators, etc.). Finally, this study shows the need to harmonize the accounting regulations to provide clear information and uniform of the impacts of cap and trade in its financial statements of companies and thus facilitate the comparability between companies.