Does government's environmental attention improve urban energy efficiency?

As urban environmental problems are becoming more and more prominent, government's attention to environmental issues is ever increasing. How government's environmental attention affects urban energy efficiency is a question worth pondering. Using data of 274 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2021, we found that government's environmental attention is positively related to improvement in urban energy efficiency. Further, the results of quantile regression showed that the positive marginal effect of government's environmental attention on urban energy efficiency gradually increased. The mechanism analysis results indicated that science and technology expenditure played a part mediating role. The analysis of moderating effect of regional characteristics showed that the effect of government environmental attention's on improving energy efficiency was more significant in cities with high urbanization level, digitization level, financialization level, green area, and fiscal decentralization level. The findings of this study provide insights for government policy formulation.