KPMG updates California climate laws page after reporting delay

KPMG updated its California climate laws reference page on June 25 after the California Air Resources Board pushed the first SB-253 reporting deadline to Nov. 10, 2026, from Aug. 10. For KPMG’s audit, tax and advisory teams, the shift turns the next four months into a remediation window: tighten emissions data controls, close supplier-data gaps, align legal and finance owners, and separate the workstreams that can wait from the ones that cannot.

The page covers more than one filing date. It ties together SB-253, which governs greenhouse gas emissions reporting, SB-261, which covers climate-related financial risk, and AB-1305, which addresses carbon offset and emissions-reduction claims. The laws apply to U.S. businesses in scope, whether public or private, and the June 25 update made limited clarifying changes while CARB finalizes its initial regulation.

CARB’s SB-253 program applies to business entities formed under California law, another U.S. state, the District of Columbia or Congress, with more than $1 billion in annual revenue and business activity in California. The first-year report covers Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. CARB set Aug. 10 as the initial filing date in its Feb. 26 regulation, and March workshop materials still showed that deadline before the June deferral.

Climate reporting now sits across ESG, audit, tax, risk, legal and technology functions. Clients are asking whether the extra time should be used as a compliance buffer, a remediation period or a chance to redesign reporting workflows. In practice, that means more pressure on teams to document entity scoping, validate vendor inputs and prove that emissions data can stand up to finance-grade controls and future assurance work.

California passed SB 253 and SB 261 in 2023, later amended them through SB 219 in 2024, and CARB’s enforcement notice moved the deadline for the agency to adopt SB-253 regulations from Jan. 1, 2025, to July 1, 2025. CARB’s Feb. 26 action also set flat-rate fees for the Climate Accountability and Emissions Disclosure Fund and the Climate-Related Financial Risk Disclosure Fund.