High density, low temperature divertor plasma operation in tokamaks results in large neutral deuterium concentrations in the divertor volume. In these conditions, low energy charge transfer reactions between neutral deuterium and the impurity ions can in principle enhance the impurity radiative losses and thus help to reduce the maximum heat load to the divertor target. A quantitative study of the effect of charge exchange on carbon emission is presented, applied to the JET divertor. Total and state selective effective charge exchange recombination rate coefficients were calculated in the collisional radiative picture. These coefficients were coupled to divertor and impurity transport models to study the effect of charge exchange on the measured carbon spectral emission in JET divertor discharges. The sensitivity of the effect of charge exchange to the assumptions in the impurity transport model was also investigated. A reassessment was made of fundamental charge exchange cross section data in support of this study.