How can climate adaptation policy enhance urban climate resilience? Empirical evidence from China

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0335736 November 6, 2025 1 / 21 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Yin A, Liu Z (2025) How can climate adaptation policy enhance urban climate resilience? Empirical evidence from China. PLoS One 20(11): e0335736. https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0335736 Editor: Genyu Xu, Yunnan University, CHINA Received: September 22, 2024 Accepted: October 15, 2025 Published: November 6, 2025 Copyright: © 2025 Yin, Liu . This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data availability statement: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its supporting information file. Funding: This work was supported by the National Pre-research Funds of Hebei GEO University in 2024 [KY2024YB13 to AY] and Hebei Province Graduate Student Model Course Program [KCJSX2024100 to AY]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and RESEARCH ARTICLE How can climate adaptation policy enhance urban climate resilience? Empirical evidence from China Ana Yin 1,2*, Ziqi Liu2 1 Hebei Province Research Base for Science and Technology Innovation and Sustainable Regional Economic Development, Hebei GEO University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China, 2 School of Economics, Hebei GEO University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China * yin_ana@126.com Abstract As the primary carriers of population aggregation, cities face severe climate risks

and challenges. This paper examines whether and how climate adaptation policy can enhance urban climate resilience. Based on panel data from 57 cities in China’s typical ecologically fragile region—the Yellow River Basin—from 2010 to 2022, this study employs the Synthetic DID method to evaluate China’s Climate Adaptive City Construction Pilot Program (CACCP). The results indicate that the CACCP policy can significantly enhance urban climate resilience, and this conclusion remains valid after a series of robustness tests. The CACCP policy mechanism reveals that green bond instruments play an effective mediating role in promoting urban climate resilience under the CACCP policy. Urban education and public environmental concern have positive moderating effects on the implementation of the CACCP policy, while urban mineral resource dependency has an adverse moderating effect. These findings con- firm the effectiveness of climate adaptation policies. It also reveals the financial tools, human capital, cultural values, and economic structural pathways that drive human adaptation to climate change. 1. Introduction The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) clearly states that human-induced climate change has already impacted numerous extreme weather and climate events world- wide, resulting in widespread adverse effects on food and water security, human health, and the economy and society [1]. Since the 21st century, although countries have made active efforts to mitigate climate change, current mitigation actions have

failed to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement, and keeping global warming below 2°C has become increasingly challenging [1]. The international community has strongly urged all countries not only to strengthen climate change mitigation mea- sures but also to accelerate climate adaptation efforts, which are now urgent and