Government Environmental Attention and Urban Carbon Emissions: A Governance-Based Interpretation from the Perspective of Harmonious Human–Nature Coexistence

Abstract

In the context of China’s pursuit of the “dual carbon” goals and the broader modernization agenda centered on harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature, the role of local governments in carbon mitigation has become increasingly important. Existing studies have primarily focused on the effectiveness of specific policy instruments, such as environmental regulation, carbon taxation, emissions trading, and fiscal subsidies, while paying comparatively less attention to a more fundamental issue: how local governments’ environmental attention shapes the governance process prior to the implementation of concrete policies. This paper argues that governmental environmental attention should be understood as a prior governance variable that influences policy priorities, resource allocation, enforcement preferences, and ultimately urban carbon emissions. Rather than assuming a simple linear relationship, the paper emphasizes that governmental environmental attention may generate both restraining and promoting effects on carbon emissions through multiple channels, including regulatory constraint, market-based incentives, green investment, industrial restructuring, and governance capacity. These effects are further conditioned by development stage, industrial structure, regional competition, and institutional capacity. The paper therefore proposes a governance-based analytical framework for understanding the complex relationship between governmental environmental attention and urban carbon emissions. Its central argument is that environmental attention matters not because it is merely discursively present in official texts, but because it determines whether environmental concerns are effectively incorporated into local development priorities and transformed into institutionalized governance arrangements.