A Meta‐Analytic Review of Board Characteristics and Carbon Emission Disclosure: The Moderating Effect of Contextual Factors

ABSTRACT The relationship between board governance and corporate carbon emission disclosure remains persistently inconsistent across the empirical literature, despite decades of accumulated evidence. Drawing on agency, stakeholder, legitimacy, institutional, and upper echelons perspectives within a single analytical framework, we conduct a three‐level meta‐analysis with robust variance estimation to correct for within‐study dependence, synthesising 66 studies and 140 effect sizes across diverse institutional contexts over 2010–2024 while explicitly modelling institutional and methodological boundary conditions. Environmental committees and gender diversity are the strongest predictors of carbon transparency, followed by board size and independence; CEO duality yields no significant aggregate effect. These pooled estimates, however, mask substantial contextual variation. Governance efficacy is strictly contingent on institutional setting: effects are markedly larger under mandatory reporting regimes than voluntary ones, are strongly attenuated in North American markets relative to Asia and Europe, and CEO duality undergoes a directional reversal—positive in common law systems and negative in civil law systems. Research design type and disclosure measurement framework account for a meaningful additional share of between‐study variance. Internal board structures and external institutional pressures thus operate as mutually reinforcing rather than substitutive mechanisms—a finding that carries targeted, jurisdiction‐specific implications for investors and regulators designing climate disclosure mandates.