Critical reviewAchieving the Paris goals: Consumption-based carbon accounting

•Consumption-based carbon accounting (CBA) has advantages of fairness, effectiveness, and cost.•The use of CBA also has rather high political feasibility.•Major concurrent reasons suggest that the time is ripe for employing CBA.•A strategy for promoting the adoption of CBA should shape converging preferences in its support.

To achieve the Paris Agreement abatement goals, the use of consumption-based carbon accounting (CBA) as a target base, i.e., as a reference scale for emissions reductions, has potential advantages of fairness, effectiveness, and cost. At the same time, CBA also has rather high political feasibility. However, CBA has not yet been adopted, not even experimentally. Nevertheless, major concurrent reasons suggest that the time is ripe for employing this accounting system as a target base. Accordingly, this review article indicates a strategy that leverages the potential of CBA to take advantage of the ripeness of the time through the activation of governance measures that increase the likelihood of its adoption as a target base. This strategy can shape converging preferences in support of CBA among stakeholders belonging to different political traditions and subject to different political constraints, and increase the chances of this accounting system being adopted as a target base.