Evaluation of Green and Low-Carbon Development in Chinese Cities

Against the backdrop of China’s new carbon neutrality work plan for 2024 and a new phase in the country’s urban development, this study applies a comprehensive evaluation indicator system we have created to evaluate and analyze green and low-carbon development in major Chinese cities. The evaluation system covers five sectors: progress toward carbon neutrality, energy transition, industrial upgrade, green development, and governance effectiveness. It also includes such innovative indicators as comparative advantage in carbon emissions, which reflects fairness and combines scoring by experts and equal weighting. The results show: (1) In 2024, the green and low-carbon development composite index for 337 cities reached an average of 80 points, a significant increase from 2023 (76.7 points), and a noteworthy achievement. (2) Regional disparities in the green and low-carbon development composite index persist. The eastern region led with 83.6 points, followed by the central region (81.6 points), western region (79.0 points), and northeastern region (75.0 points); southern cities (83.3 points) consistently outperformed northern cities (77.4 points), though the gap has slightly narrowed. (3) Pilot cities outperformed non-participating cities significantly. Beijing, Shenzhen, and other pilot cities scored higher, confirming the effectiveness of the pilot initiatives; other cities saw serious unevenness in their green and low-carbon development. (4) The core weaknesses varied from region to region. Northern cities scored notably lower (15.3 points) on progress toward carbon neutrality than southern cities (22.3 points). (5) Transition risks followed certain patterns. Economic scale was positively correlated with the level of green and low-carbon development. Economically underdeveloped cities were trapped in a vicious cycle in which low GDP led to high transition risks, which led to low green and low-carbon development level, which made growing GDP and green and low-carbon development even more difficult.