Impact of government’s dual-carbon attention on urban carbon emissions reduction: evidence from the Yangtze River Delta

There is an ever-increasing concern among local governments in China regarding the relationship between government attention and carbon emissions. This study proposes a new dual-carbon attention dictionary and measures local governments' dual-carbon attention (GCA) level using textual analysis and the maximum reverse matching method. Our research highlights that an extended STIRPAT model exhibits the significance of local governments' efforts in achieving CO₂ emissions reduction. Empirical evidences demonstrate that increased GCA leads to a greater reduction in urban CO₂ emissions. Furthermore, GCA greatly decreases urban CO₂ emissions in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) via accelerating the upgrading of industrial structures and improving emission-reduction policies implementation and reducing carbon emissions intensity. Additionally, the GCA has stronger robustness in decreasing urban CO₂ emissions in the YRD under peers GCA, environmental governance policies and environmental protection investment.