How Does Government Attention to Climate Risks Drive Corporate Green Investment? A Stakeholder Theory-Based Empirical Analysis

Against the backdrop of escalating global climate risks, whether and how government attention to climate risks affects corporate green investment is a key issue to address the “macro–micro” transmission obstruction in green economic transformation. Based on stakeholder theory, combining text analysis and panel data regression methods, this paper systematically examines the impact effect, transmission mechanism, and economic consequences of government attention to climate risks on corporate green investment, using Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2023 as research samples. The findings are as follows: (1) Government attention to climate risks significantly and positively promotes corporate green investment, and this conclusion remains valid after multiple robustness tests; (2) government attention to climate risks indirectly drives enterprises to increase green investment by strengthening environmental regulation constraints and encouraging corporate green innovation; (3) the promotion effect is more significant in enterprises in central China, manufacturing enterprises, and heavily polluting enterprises; (4) there is a U-shaped relationship between corporate green investment and corporate value. Government attention to climate risks significantly strengthens this U-shaped correlation by lowering the value return threshold of green investment and amplifying the marginal returns after crossing the threshold.