Public satisfaction with government climate actions and its determinants: Evidence from a nationwide survey in China

• Overall satisfaction with government climate actions is high across Chinese cities. • Satisfaction varies substantially across cities and population groups. • Multinomial logit and XGBoost-SHAP identify individual/city/policy predictors. • Climate-change perceptions are the strongest predictor of satisfaction. • Climate awareness and policy coordination are crucial for higher public acceptance. Understanding public satisfaction with government climate actions is crucial for mitigation and adaptation and for building climate-resilient cities. However, national-level evidence on public satisfaction and its correlates in China remains limited. Using 9819 questionnaires collected in 2023 from 310 cities, we employ multinomial logistic regression and interpretable machine learning to explore the patterns and determinants of urban residents' satisfaction with government climate actions. Overall, evaluations are positive, yet substantial heterogeneity emerges across groups and places. Males report slightly higher satisfaction than females, while students and workers in climate-vulnerable sectors report lower satisfaction. Spatially, satisfaction is higher in eastern coastal cities and the North China Plain, but generally lower in inland cities, except for some provincial capitals and climate-resilient pilot cities. Across models, public perception of climate change is the strongest predictor of satisfaction. Subjective well-being, social security index, climate change policy intensity and environmental regulation intensity also have positive effects. In contrast, higher income, worse air quality, greater exposure to extreme weather, and higher urbanization rates are negatively associated with satisfaction. Promoting climate change knowledge and adaptation measures through multiple channels, strengthening the awareness and response capabilities of diverse groups, and coordinating extreme weather responses with pollution and carbon reduction efforts can enhance public acceptance and the effectiveness of government climate actions. This study offers a country-level case to inform global climate policy discourse, while furnishing robust empirical evidence and theoretical underpinnings to guide climate policy formulation in Chinese cities.