China launched the Low-Carbon City Pilot program in 2010 to explore pathways for urban low-carbon transition and provide demonstrative experiences. To evaluate the actual performance of pilot cities against their planned targets, this study first comprehensively assesses pilot performance and then employs machine learning to construct carbon emission models for pilot cities, aiming to reconstruct the trajectories of target carbon intensity and total emissions and compare them with actual emission reduction outcomes during urban development. The results show that pilot cities generally performed better than the national average in controlling both carbon emissions intensity and total carbon emissions. However, only four pilot cities achieved carbon peaking as scheduled, while five cities had already exceeded their planned peak emission levels based on their observed maximum emissions. Substantial gaps generally remain between the actual emission-reduction outcomes of pilot cities and their planned targets, potentially resulting in an approximately 16% increase in peak carbon emissions relative to the planned levels and a delay in the timing of carbon peaking. These deviations may also place greater pressure on the low-carbon transition of cities nationwide in the next stage. This gap stems from the structural tension between economic growth and low-carbon transition and is further reinforced by the Giddens paradox. Future efforts should strengthen the rigid constraints of dual carbon controls, incorporate carbon reduction targets into local government performance evaluations, establish dynamic early-warning mechanisms for carbon emission trajectories, and differentiate emission reduction priorities according to cities' stages of carbon peaking, so as to promote convergence between actual emission reduction outcomes and planned targets and reduce uncertainty in the carbon peaking process.
SHI Min-jun
,
WANG Yin-yi
,
YE Jin-wei
,
Colleagues
. Evaluation of transformation effects and analysis of driving mechanisms of Low-Carbon City Pilot Projects[J]. Urban Problems, 2026
, 371(6)
: 4
-14
.
DOI: 10.13239/j.bjsshkxy.cswt.260601
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