From Policy to Practice: A Multidimensional Exploration of China’s Low-Carbon City Pilots

From the perspective of carbon neutrality, this paper explores the critical role of China’s low-carbon city pilot projects in achieving the national carbon neutrality goals. Cities are the primary sources of carbon emissions in China, making the promotion of low-carbon city development a crucial path to reaching the 2030 carbon peak and 2060 carbon neutrality targets. Under the guidance of national policies, several Chinese cities have been selected as low-carbon city pilots, actively exploring effective pathways forlow-carbon transition through innovative policies, technological applications, and social participation. This paper focuses on analyzing the policy framework and conducting case studies of typical cities, particularly highlighting the successful experiences and challenges inpolicy implementation, technological innovation, and citizen engagement in four pilot cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Chengdu. To address these challenges, this paper proposes policy optimization suggestions for the future development oflow-carbon cities in China. These recommendations provide not only improvement directions for other Chinese cities but also practical insights for carbon neutrality practices in other regions.