The predicament of clean energy technology promotion in China in the carbon neutrality context: Lessons from China’s environmental regulation policies from the perspective of the evolutionary game theory

China is currently trying to revolutionize the primary energy industry by introducing clean energy technologies. The Chinese government has set up goals for improving energy utilization efficiency and environmental quality, hence finally achieving carbon neutrality. However, the conflict of interests between different parties, namely, the Chinese government, the energy industry and the third-party clean energy regulatory audit authorities, may impede the promotion of clean energy technologies. We apply the evolutionary game model involving these three parties to a theoretical analysis of the evolutionarily stable strategies adopted by these three parties. The influence factors of strategy selection for each group of stakeholders and the final form of evolutionary stable strategies adopted by each are discussed. We perform a numerical simulation of the progressive stability of several evolutionary stable strategies and the influence of parameter changes on these strategies. The results show that when the government’s initial strategy value increases from 0.2 to 0.8, the time required for game equilibrium is reduced by about 50%, which indicates that the government’s supervisory efforts adapt to the development status quo of China’s energy industry is the decisive factor for the implementation effectiveness of government policies. The government’s strong supervision over the use of clean energy technologies may adversely affect the national economic development and energy stability to a certain degree. Nevertheless, such supervision can effectively inhibit the rent-seeking behaviors between energy industry and the third-party clean energy regulatory audit authorities. Besides, strengthening the penalty while introducing appropriate incentive measures enhances the resistance of the third-party clean energy regulatory audit authorities to rent-seeking behaviors. It is necessary for China to dynamically adjust the policies for promoting clean energy technologies based on the influence factors of policy efficiency to coordinate the interests among the stakeholders and achieve a dynamic balance between the three parties.