How scholars and the public perceive a “low carbon city” in China

China is actively promoting low-carbon city development. Understanding the perception of a low-carbon city by the entire society is vital for effective policy implementation. However, the essence of a “Low Carbon City” is not consistently understood by the society. In this article, big data mining and a bibliometric approach were adopted to establish several indicators so that scholars (based on literature) and the public (based on social network) perceptions on low carbon cities can be uncovered. The major findings are as follows: The numbers of literature and social networking posts with “low carbon” & “city” as key words have increased during the period 2010-2016 and reached a peak in 2013. The literature mainly defines low-carbon cities from a macro-economic aspect. However, the public express their concerns with respect to the quality of life or how their behaviors could be affected. Cities with high PPI (Publication Popularity Indicator) or WPI (Weibo Popularity Indicator) values are mainly clustered in the three Chinese main economic regions (Jing-Jin-Ji region, Yangtze River delta region and Pearl River delta region). Cities with high CPII (Comprehensive Popularity Intensity Indicator) values are not always clustered in the three main economic regions but are located dispersedly. This implies that cities can make great progresses in low carbon development irrespective of their economic levels and spatial locations. Three cities (Shuangyashan, Chongzuo and Guyuan) had zero PPI, WPI and CPII values, reflecting that they have not been considered for low carbon development by the scientific community or the public. It is obvious that some cities have been ignored in the context of low carbon development or they have not taken any initiatives with respect to low carbon development. The CPII used in this paper could be a useful indicator for monitoring and evaluating the perception of low carbon development at the city level.