The Coordination Path of Carbon Pricing Mechanism and ESG Greenwashing Supervision in China: Implications for Developing Countries
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54097/0q428r94Keywords:
Carbon pricing, ESG information disclosure, greenwashing supervision, climate governance, policy coordinationAbstract
China is faced with the dilemma of how to connect the carbon pricing mechanism with the ESG information disclosure system when global climate regulation has entered the stage of implementation and enforcement. As per the World Bank's report State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2025, 80 carbon pricing measures were in force across the world by early 2025, covering about 28% of greenhouse gas emissions. The effectiveness of carbon pricing relies on the quality of emission data, and the information constraint function of the ESG system is degraded by the "greenwashing" phenomenon. In 2025, all 427 mandatory disclosure enterprises in the A-share market released ESG reports, but only 226 of them adopted third-party verification, according to the China Association for Public Companies (CAPCO), and the quality of information disclosure was not subject to external supervision. The functioning of the carbon market does not have ESG verification, and the ESG rating has not properly reflected the actual emission performance of firms under the constraint of carbon pricing. Based on the limited regulatory resources in China, this paper proposes to take "accountable carbon performance" as the connecting point and build a collaborative framework from three levels: data interoperability, risk linkage and regulatory coordination, so as to reduce the space for enterprises to selectively disclose and falsely promote, and enhance the credibility of climate governance.
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