Public participation is playing an increasingly important role in environmental governance. This paper uses panel data from Chinese cities to evaluate the causal relationship between public participation, regional carbon emissions, and regional carbon intensity. We obtain the following conclusions: (1) Public participation significantly reduces regional carbon emissions and regional carbon intensity, which remains robust after a series of robustness and endogeneity discussions. (2) The carbon reduction effect of public participation performs better in eastern regions, regions with higher per capita income, and regions with a concentration of tertiary industries and talents. (3) We divided the public participation into resident participation and environment non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) participation. We found an excellent interactive emission reduction effect with resident participation and a good interaction between resident participation and government and environmental organizations. (4) This paper finds that promoting regional green technology innovation is a significant mechanism for public participation in achieving carbon emission reduction. (5) Finally, this paper found an “inverted U-shaped” non-linear relationship between public participation and regional carbon emissions. The results reveal the importance of public participation in regional carbon emissions and provide an empirical basis for promoting informal environmental regulation.

Informal environmental regulation, represented by public participation, has an increasingly significant role in environmental governance. This paper utilizes panel data of 285 cities in China from 2003 to 2017. It examines the difference-in-differences (DID) and instrumental variable method (IV) to investigate the causal effect of public participation represented by Environmental Non- Governmental Organizations(ENGOs) on regional carbon emissions. The empirical results show that public participation reduces regional carbon emissions, which still holds after a series of endogeneity and robustness tests. This paper proves an inverted U-shaped nonlinear relationship between the intensity of public participation and regional carbon emissions. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates that regional green technology innovation and strengthening formal environmental regulations are the primary mechanisms for public involvement in promoting regional carbon emission reduction. Finally, this paper discusses the heterogeneity governance effect among cities and finds that the governance effect of the sample is more pronounced in eastern cities, non-resource-based cities, large cities, and provincial capitals. The results reveal the importance of public participation in regional carbon emission reduction and provide an empirical basis for promoting informal environmental regulation.

Driven by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the importance of sustainable urbanization has taken center stage. In this study, we investigate the impact of polycentric structures on CO₂ emissions using data from 279 Chinese cities and employing two-way fixed effects complemented by instrumental variables. Our findings indicate that polycentric structures effectively alleviate CO₂ emissions. We identify two key pathways through which polycentric structures contribute to CO₂ reduction: promoting green technology and curbing energy consumption. Additionally, we discover that these relationships are influenced by market integration levels and resource dependency. This research offers valuable insights into the future development of sustainable urban spatial structures, paving the way for more eco-friendly cities around the globe.

Vertical management auditing reforms achieve the centralization of audit institutions. The centralized structure of the auditing institutions affects their performance. This paper verifies the positive effect of vertical management auditing reform on carbon productivity through a difference-in-differences method. The conclusion still holds after robustness tests. Moreover, the policy effects only make sense when government officials face low promotion pressure or high public scrutiny pressure. The mechanism analysis shows that the vertical management auditing reform can improve carbon productivity by strengthening environmental regulation, promoting industrial structure rationalization, and improving regional green innovation and energy efficiency. This paper enriches the research on the relationship between auditing centralization and carbon productivity.

The strain of environmental deterioration is growing in tandem with the rapid growth of the economy. This research examines the impact of regional environmental information disclosure on water quality in China. The results show that the higher the degree of information disclosure is, the more neutral the water environment. Based on the baseline regression, the study analyses the mediation effect and moderating effect. The results show that urbanization rate plays a part role in mediation effect. Also, Natural population growth rate and sewage treatment rate have a moderating effect. After a series of robustness tests, this conclusion was still confirmed. This paper makes policy recommendations and suggests research directions for the future.