Public participation plays a central role in demand-side climate mitigation and the broader low-carbon transition. As an incentive-based voluntary policy designed to encourage individual carbon-reduction behaviors, the Carbon Generalized System of Preferences (CGSP) provides an important policy context for examining how demand-side climate policies shape public low-carbon involvement willingness. This study examines whether and how the CGSP policy affects public low-carbon involvement willingness (LIW) across Chinese cities. Using large-scale social media data from 267 cities over 2013–2023, we construct city-level indicators of LIW through a deep learning framework. These indicators are then incorporated into a multi-period difference-in-differences model to estimate the policy's causal effects. The results show that the CGSP policy significantly enhances both cognitive and behavioral dimensions of low-carbon involvement willingness, with a relatively stronger effect on behavioral involvement. The effects exhibit substantial heterogeneity across regions, infrastructure conditions, and levels of internet development, with stronger effects in cities characterized by better infrastructure and relatively better internet development. Further analysis indicates that government attention (GA) and digital inclusive finance (DIFI) serve as important institutional and market-based channels linking the policy to public low-carbon involvement willingness. Specifically, GA primarily operates through the cognitive channel by enhancing information dissemination, while DIFI supports both cognitive and behavioral involvement willingness by reducing participation barriers and facilitating access to low-carbon services. These findings provide empirical evidence on the role of demand-side climate policies in promoting public low-carbon involvement and offer policy implications for designing incentive-based low-carbon governance instruments.

Publication:

ENERGY ECONOMICS

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2026.109518

Author:

Jing Zhou

School of Economics and Management, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China

Accounting Depatement, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

Email addresses: tb23070012a41ld@cumt.edu.cn

Ting Yue

School of Economics and Management, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China

Corresponding author

Email addresses: yueting@cumt.edu.cn

Ying Wang

School of Economics and Management, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China

Email addresses: ts23070077a31tm@cumt.edu.cn

Claire Murong Cui

Accounting Depatement, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

Auckland Centre for Financial Research, Auckland, New Zealand

Email addresses: claire.cui@aut.ac.nz

Ruyin Long

School of Business, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China

Wanqi Ma

School of Business, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China

Email addresses:wq.ma@jiangnan.stu.edu.cn

Shouyang Wang

Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Email addresses:sywang@amss.ac.cn

Le Wen

Department of Economics, Business School, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Email addresses: l.wen@auckland.ac.nz (L. Wen).