The path toward urban carbon neutrality: How does the low-carbon city pilot policy stimulate low-carbon technology?

To reduce carbon emissions, it is important to promote the development of low-carbon technology in urban areas. This study is the first to examine the impact of policies on the advancement of low-carbon technologies using the Low-Carbon City Pilot Policy as a quasi-natural experiment. Specifically, the study examines the impacts of the Low-Carbon City Pilot Policy on low-carbon and carbon-reducing, -neutral, and -negative technologies. It does so by analyzing data from 2006 to 2020 across 278 prefecture-level cities in China. The analysis is based on various models and includes use of multi-period difference-in-differences (DID), multi-period propensity score matching (PSM) DID, event study, staggered DID, and synthetic DID (SDID). The results indicate that the Low-Carbon City Pilot Policy has substantially impacted the development of urban low-carbon inventions, particularly evident in the ongoing growth of carbon-neutral and -negative technologies. The Low-Carbon City Pilot Policy is mainly achieved through industrial upgrades, green finance, and public behavior, but the effects on low-carbon technologies are heterogeneous due to environmental resources law and regional digital economic development. These findings offer more theoretical backing and empirical substantiation for the Chinese government's pursuit of “point-to-surface” implementation of low-carbon cities, and for the expedited achievement of its “carbon peaking, carbon neutrality” target.