As the main source of energy supply and carbon emissions, the oil and gas industry has entered the comprehensive low-carbon transition stage driven by various factors. Since different oil companies possess distinct understandings of transition paths, the effect of low carbon transition varies greatly. Obviously, it is necessary to evaluate the performance of low-carbon transitions within the oil and gas industry. Therefore, in this paper, 10 major international oil companies are taken as examples, and a super-efficiency slack-based measurement (super-SBM) model is applied in the present study to analyze the efficiency of low-carbon transitions. Furthermore, the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) is used to decompose the driving factors of carbon emissions and analyze their impact on the low-carbon transition of international oil companies. The obtained results reveal that although major oil companies have taken different measures in low-carbon transition and achieved a year-on-year reduction in carbon emissions, from the perspective of the efficiency of the entire production and operation process, these oil companies are inefficient in carbon emissions and need to adopt more effective low-carbon transition strategies; Moreover, after the further decomposition of the carbon emission driving factors of the 10 companies, it is found that improving the energy consumption intensity and development level of oil companies can effectively improve the effect of low-carbon transition of international oil companies. Drawing on the above findings, this paper puts forward suggestions for the low-carbon transition of energy companies, thus providing theoretical support and guidance for energy companies in different countries to implement low-carbon transition and green development strategies.

The existing research shows that when facing the trade-off between economic benefits and green innovation, enterprises often prioritize economic gains, and how to promote enterprise green innovation (EGI) has become a pressing issue that needs to be solved at this stage. Against this backdrop, China’s Civilized City Construction (CCC) policy, which emphasizes the coordinated development of economic, political, ecological, and spiritual civilization, places higher demands on enterprise environmental behaviors. This creates an opportune moment to investigate the relationship between urban governance policies and EGI. In this study, we employ a Difference-in-Differences (DID) model to examine whether the CCC policy can promote EGI and reveal its underlying mechanisms. The research findings indicate that CCC significantly promotes EGI. The policy improves EGI levels by strengthening regional environmental regulations and increasing environmental subsidy levels. This finding provides lessons for advancing enterprise sustainability strategies and new perspectives for global urban governance policy formulation and implementation.

The adoption of provincial carbon-trading market-construction policies in China expanded rapidly before a five-year hiatus in new qualifying policies. This study examines how industrial-structure and GDP-feasibility learning cues relate to diffusion alongside pilot designation, regional competition, and media attention. Directed provincial-pair models cover the lagged-covariate period of 2013–2022 within a descriptive observation window of 2012–2022. Industrial-structure learning has a positive association in the additive model, and the highest signed-gap quartile differs positively from the lowest quartile, whereas GDP-feasibility learning is not supported. The industrial association becomes imprecise when national-market phases are included, and multiple-testing adjustments further qualify the evidence. Interaction estimates do not consistently support signal interference. The hiatus coincides with national-market construction and a changing population of nonadopters. Exploratory provincial scenarios also remain uncertain. These findings distinguish structural learning cues from economic-capacity cues while emphasizing that nationwide institutional change must be considered when interpreting provincial diffusion.