Abstract: China, in response to the severe climate problem, proposed the environmental political discourse of “carbon peak” and “carbon neutrality” in 2020. However, in climate governance, the “Jevons paradox” illustrates the inability of relying solely on technological progress to achieve energy saving and emission reduction for the whole society. A new perspective, of social governance, is thus introduced in analyzing the logic of China's “carbon neutrality”. The two-way driving logic of “hard embedding” and “soft embedding” of social governance has greatly improved the political opportunity structure for the realization of “carbon neutrality” policy issues, i.e. it may shorten the time span of the process, thus providing China's resolution to the “Jevons' paradox” long standing in capitalist countries. To break the bad interaction between capital and technology drawn from the “Jevons paradox”, we must further regulate both the “hard” and the “soft” institutional supplies, enhance the “carbon neutrality” governance in the rule of law and intelligence, and improve the consultative democratic mechanism, so as to realize the comprehensive green transformation based on “carbon neutrality”.

Key words: carbon neutrality, the “Jevons paradox”, social governance, carbon peak, low-carbon community, imbed