Facing up to the global warming, China has addressed great efforts on low carbon development.Since the year 2010, it has issued two batches of low carbon pilots. However, not all the pilots produced satisfactory outcomes as expected, while a less developed pilot city, Guangyuan got a reassuring result which was considered as a surprise. How do we explain this surprise? Could a less developed city solve its CO2emission dilemma while pursuing the industrialization and urbanization? Using sequential game and multi-case comparison, this paper tries to examine the main drivers of Guangyuan’s low carbon initiative and the determinants of its achievement. The analysis shows that Guangyuan had no advantages in low carbon potential compared with its reference cities, while the low carbon surprise was due to its strong political willingness and leadership, an effective multi-level governance network and a low carbon oriented evaluation system for local officials. It demonstrates that a less developed city could solve the CO2emission dilemma while seeking its economic growth; technical level, fund, and human resources are important but not dominant; to ensure the implementation of low carbon policies, meeting low carbon objectives should be taken full consideration into the evaluation system for local officials.
