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Climate change is a non-traditional security crisis affecting the global economy and diplomatic progress. In order to curtail carbon emissions and alleviate the perils of climate change at their roots, urban green innovation (UGI) has emerged as a pivotal technological solution. Using the expansion of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration in China as a case study, this paper develops a quasi-experimental model to analyze the effects of regional integration policies on UGI. The main findings are: (1) Regional integration policies significantly enhance UGI and their impact is more pronounced with the expansion of urban agglomerations; (2) Regional integration policies contribute to the advancement of exploitative green innovation while tending to diminish exploratory green innovation; (3) The green innovation effects (GIEs) created by the expansion of regional integration policies are largely influenced by governmental mechanisms on environmental governance as well as residents' green preferences. Based on these findings, recommendations are put forward to promote UGI from the perspective of policy implementation. • The quasi-experimental models of urban agglomeration expansion on green innovation are constructed. • The positive effects of urban agglomeration expansion on green innovation are proven. • Urban agglomeration expansion can enhance exploitative green innovation and also reduce exploratory green innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving the global decarbonization goal under global conflicts is becoming more uncertain. Within this context, this article seeks to examine the effects of global environmental management and efforts to achieve this goal. Specifically, it investigates the role of democracy, control of corruption, and civil society participation as mechanisms that moderate the impact of environmental policy and legislation, particularly clean energy policy and climate change legislation (laws and regulations), on carbon emissions in highly polluted countries. The empirical results show that (i) the effects of democracy-clean energy policies and climate change legislation are relatively small in reducing carbon emissions; (ii) the effect of controlling corruption-climate change regulations is strong in reducing emissions, meaning that governments with higher control of corruption are more effective at enacting and executing laws and regulations dealing with environmental challenges which help achieve desirable environmental outcomes; (iii) strong civil society participation helps the execution of clean energy policies and climate change legislation to curb emissions, and (iv) the robustness check also provides strong evidence that higher control of corruption can contribute to the effectiveness of these policies and legislation in reducing carbon emissions. Overall, these findings suggest that the efficiency of well-designed environmental policy and legislation should be supported by a combination of higher civil society participation and greater control of corruption that can efficiently enforce such policies and legislation. • We examine the role of climate policies and legislation (CPL) in meeting net-zero emission. • We focus on the moderating role of democracy, control of corruption, and civil society. • The interaction effects of democracy and CPL on reducing carbon emissions are relatively small. • Corruption control complements climate change regulations for reducing carbon emissions. • Strong civil society participation complements CPL for reducing carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]