The mechanism for selecting low carbon urban experimentation cases in the literature and its impact on carbon emission performance

Recently, low carbon urban experimentations have received increasing attention in dealing with climate change. As low carbon urban experimentations are the pilots to test low carbon practices, it is necessary to examine the factors influencing the case-selection mechanism in the low carbon urban experimentation literature and its impact on cases’ carbon emission performance. We developed hypotheses about the case-selection mechanism using economic, urban and other factors. We observed that the scholar proximity and population size of cities are positively related to their frequency to be selected as cases. The case frequency of low carbon urban experimentations in the literature is positively associated with their carbon emission performance. Thus, policymakers should pay attention to the lessons from frequently selected cases in the low carbon urban experimentation literature. As scholar promixty is positively associated with case selection in low carbon urban experimentation literature. Practitioners can promote the development of low carbon research institutions and scholars, which can help cities gain more low carbon development knowledge and increase their carbon emission efficiency in the end.