Abstract:Amid intensifying global environmental challenges, urban green innovation and sustainable development have garnered significant attention. This study examines the dual pilot policy integrating innovative cities and new energy demonstration cities, employing a difference-in-differences (DID) approach to uncover the mechanisms through which the synergistic governance of technological innovation and energy transition shapes green innovation ecosystems. The findings reveal that the dual pilot policy significantly enhances urban green innovation capabilities with sustained effects, operating through three key pathways: amplifying public environmental awareness to expand market demand for green technologies, stimulating the innovative potential of enterprises and talent, and promoting industrial structure upgrading. Policy effectiveness exhibits pronounced regional heterogeneity, with stronger impacts observed in eastern regions, non-resource-dependent cities, and cities with robust knowledge dissemination capacities. Spatial econometric analysis further identifies a "siphon effect," wherein the policy improves green innovation efficiency in pilot cities but risks exacerbating technology and resource drain in non-pilot areas, highlighting potential regional development imbalances. By transcending conventional single-policy evaluation paradigms, this research demonstrates how synergistic governance generates multiplier effects through resource integration. These insights not only provide novel empirical evidence for collaborative governance theory but also offer practical guidance for designing global sustainability policies that balance efficiency and equity, emphasizing the need to reconcile localized green transitions with interregional resource allocation dynamics.