Carbon Disclosure in the Era of Climate Change: A Bibliometric Assessment of Global Research Trends

Abstract

Climate change has intensified the demand for greater corporate transparency and accountability, making carbon disclosure an increasingly important research area over the past two decades. As governments, investors, and other stakeholders place greater emphasis on climate-related information, research on carbon disclosure has expanded substantially across various disciplines. Despite this rapid growth, a comprehensive understanding of the intellectual structure, thematic evolution, and emerging research directions of the field remains limited. This study aims to systematically map the global development of carbon disclosure research in the context of climate change through a bibliometric analysis. A total of 290 Scopus-indexed articles published between 2008 and 2026 were analyzed using Bibliometrix (R package) and VOSviewer. The analysis encompasses publication performance, collaboration networks, citation structures, co-citation relationships, keyword co-occurrence, thematic evolution, thematic mapping, and topic trends. The findings reveal a well-established and rapidly evolving research field characterized by expanding international collaboration and increasingly diverse research themes. While climate change remains the dominant theme throughout the study period, the literature has evolved from an initial emphasis on voluntary carbon disclosure toward more specialized topics, including corporate governance, carbon accounting, carbon performance, disclosure quality, and climate-related reporting. Furthermore, emerging themes such as carbon information disclosure, carbon intensity, and developing-country contexts indicate promising opportunities for future research. By providing a comprehensive overview of the intellectual, conceptual, and thematic development of carbon disclosure research, this study enriches the existing literature and offers valuable insights for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in advancing corporate climate transparency, environmental accountability, and sustainability reporting.

Keywords:  carbon disclosure; climate change; bibliometric analysis; scopus