Industrial Intellectual Property Upgrading Reform, Inclusive Potential of Regional Innovation Ecosystems, and Low-Carbon Green Energy Eco-Co-Evolution—A Machine Learning-Based Causal Inference Analysis

The core predicament of energy transition lies not in the availability of clean technologies, but in whether an economy possesses the institutional capacity and social foundation to systematically regulate its carbon-energy metabolic processes. Drawing upon co-evolutionary theory from evolutionary economics, this paper constructs a composite indicator of Low-Carbon Green Energy Eco-Co-evolution (LCEE) encompassing three functional dimensions: efficiency advancement, kinetic energy replacement, and boundary adherence. Concurrently, by integrating innovation ecosystem theory with inclusive development theory, we propose the concept of “Inclusive Potential of Regional Innovation Ecosystems” (IEP), characterizing the systemic potential for transforming innovation outcomes into social welfare across four dimensions: Knowledge Matrix Abundance (KMF), Cultural Capillary Permeation (CCP), Technological Community Succession (TCS), and Social Root Nourishment (SRN). Taking China’s 2016 intellectual property (IP) powerhouse construction pilot as the institutional prototype of Industrial Intellectual Property Upgrading Reform (IPR), we incorporate IPR, IEP, and LCEE into a unified causal analytical framework, proposing a testable transmission logic of ‘institutional supply → ecological development → co-evolutionary synergy. Using panel data from 30 Chinese provincial-level administrative regions over 2010–2022, we employ a Spatial Durbin Difference-in-Differences (SDM-DID) model to identify the direct and spatial spillover effects of IPR on LCEE, and embed a Double Machine Learning (DML) framework to test the mediating mechanism of IEP while controlling for high-dimensional nonlinear interference. The findings reveal that IPR exerts a significant and robust direct promoting effect on LCEE, generating positive spatial spillovers to neighboring regions through the public disclosure of patent information. IEP significantly promotes local LCEE, yet its spatial spillover lacks statistical support due to structural conflicts in inter-dimensional transmission attributes. IEP plays a significant partial mediating role between IPR and LCEE, with the indirect effect accounting for over one-third of the total effect, a finding robust to alternative machine learning algorithms, sample split adjustments, and exclusion of contemporaneous competing policies. Sub-path tests reveal that KMF bears the strongest mediating efficacy, serving as the primary transmission channel, while CCP exhibits full mediation—the institutional effect on LCEE in the cultural dimension depends almost entirely on the mediating transformation through the public cultural service system. Heterogeneity analysis further demonstrates full mediation in the Low-Carbon Green Energy Eco-Kinetic Replacement (KER) dimension, indicating that the institutional catalytic effect on clean energy substitution must be realized through IEP transformation. This paper provides empirical evidence for the proposed causal pathway through which institutional public goods indirectly enhance the synergistic quality of carbon-energy transition via the inclusive potential of innovation ecosystems, providing theoretical foundations and policy implications that, while grounded in China’s institutional context, may offer valuable reference points for emerging market economies facing similar dual pressures of technological constraints and green transition.