From Departmental Silos to "One Map" for Dual Carbon: How Digital Governance Reshapes Urban Climate Action

In recent years, cities around the world have almost simultaneously pursued two goals: using digital technology to make cities "smarter," and adopting emission reduction measures to make cities "greener." In many places, however, these two agendas are often advanced by different government departments—one is managed by big data bureaus or industry and information technology departments, and the other by ecological environment departments or development and reform commissions. Each has its own indicators, its own platforms, and even its own data centers. The result is that smart city systems show urban decision-makers traffic flows, energy consumption, and security surveillance video, while carbon emission data remains silent in a separate set of reports, unable to form an action feedback loop.

A policy study published in Frontiers in Environmental Science in 2026 reveals that Chinese local governments are attempting to break this "structural fragmentation." Using a qualitative case method, the study focuses on the practice of one local government and observes how it aligns smart city projects with carbon neutrality goals within a single governance framework. The study concludes that truly effective integration does not depend on installing more sensors or launching more algorithms, but rather on three institutional mechanisms: whether high-level digital data governance mechanisms can operate institutionally, whether formal channels exist for cross-departmental policy coordination, and whether digital tools are genuinely embedded in low-carbon public service processes.

This actually reminds us that, for carbon neutrality, smart cities are not a technological substitute but a reconfiguration of governance systems. In reality, policy fragmentation is more likely than technological backwardness to slow down urban decarbonization. Smart city plans often emphasize industrial upgrading and operational efficiency, while carbon peaking and carbon neutrality plans focus on energy structure and total emission control. Because departmental functions differ, performance evaluations vary, and data formats are incompatible, it is difficult to form a joint force even within a single city. Similar situations exist not only in China; in many countries, "smart city" and "climate city" agendas often belong to different budgets and professional circles. By contrast, the European Union, through the European Climate Law and the European Green Deal, has horizontally embedded climate goals into areas such as energy, buildings, and transport, but this is supported by federal or common frameworks that not all localities possess.

The Chinese case in the study is noteworthy because it demonstrates an integration path of "local self-organization." In this case, the local government did not wait for the central government to create a unified framework. Instead, within the existing administrative structure, it established a high-level digital government leadership mechanism, from which cross-departmental data sharing and low-carbon business coordination mechanisms emerged. Its core logic is to use digital infrastructure as a "bus," making carbon emission data part of smart city operational data and bringing low-carbon indicators onto the large screens of urban operation centers. This means that carbon goals are no longer just reports from ecological environment departments, but become binding variables in the city's daily dispatch and management system.The contribution of this study also lies in pulling the relationship between smart cities and carbon neutrality out of technological optimism or pessimism and placing it within the framework of institutional analysis. Digital technology does bring negative effects such as energy rebound or e-waste, but its long-term effects depend on patterns of use and governance structure. For example, a building carbon management system built on a unified data platform requires the continuous flow of data across multiple departments, including construction, planning, energy, and natural resources. Without a formal coordination mechanism, it can only be driven by temporary project teams and cannot form a long-term mechanism.

Looking ahead, cities around the world may all need to reflect: the real bottleneck of smart city construction lies not in being "not smart enough," but in the "insufficient capacity for action" caused by fragmented responsibilities. If a city, as in this case, can establish digital data governance authority at the institutional level and thereby connect low-carbon public service processes, then the smart city can become the infrastructure needed to achieve carbon neutrality. Taking a broader view, achieving climate goals depends on the modernization of cities' overall governance capacity. The next stage of urban competition is no longer simply a competition over computing power or industry, but a competition in systems integration capacity—that is, whether transparent, real-time data flows can cross departmental boundaries and be transformed into a unified logic of action.

This trend also offers lessons for technology products: smart city platforms should not only serve "operations and maintenance" or "efficiency," but should be designed around the process of creating public value. If a city's dual-carbon blueprint cannot be translated into operational instructions in business systems, then no matter how refined the digital twin is, it remains merely a visual spectacle. The intelligent systems of future urban governance will inevitably have to answer one question: how can a goal—for example, carbon reduction—be broken down level by level and continuously measured along the chain of policy, data, budget, projects, and public services? Seen in this light, the policy integration explored in this article is the core task that the next generation of city operating systems truly needs to run.