Multidimensional Evaluation and Synergistic Development Strategies for Regional Carbon Neutrality: An Analysis of China’s Provincial Systems

As the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals advance rapidly, grasping the development status and differences in carbon neutrality across China’s provincial regions is crucial for interpreting the regional collaborative governance pattern under the circular economy initiative and promoting responsible production and consumption transformation. This paper constructs a research framework for the comprehensive evaluation and collaborative strategy of carbon neutrality. Using the Entropy Weight-TOPSIS, K-means clustering, and obstacle factor diagnosis models, the development status of carbon neutrality in 30 Chinese provinces is revealed from the perspectives of green economy, green politics, green culture, green society, and green ecology. Regional differences and critical obstacle factors are identified. Guided by the “Five-sphere Integrated Plan,” this study refines the carbon neutrality evaluation framework and fills an existing gap in the literature regarding the diagnosis of heterogeneous obstacles. It provides empirical evidence for the coordinated advancement of carbon neutrality. We find that (1) China’s overall carbon neutrality capability is relatively weak, showing a spatial pattern of “high in the east and low in the west” and a Matthew effect of “the strong getting stronger and the weak getting weaker.” The development levels of the subsystems vary markedly, with excellent and underperforming subsystems coexisting across different provinces. (2) The 30 provinces are classified as comprehensive leading, balanced-developing, policy-economy dual-driven, ecology-driven, and potential-oriented. (3) Overall, the key obstacle factors are low-carbon transportation, technology, and philosophy, yet these factors vary across the groups. To foster collaborative carbon neutrality promotion, policies should be implemented in the future based on different characteristics.