The low-carbon pilot policy is an important measure for China to accelerate the construction of ecological civilization, promote green and low-carbon development, and achieve greenhouse gas emission control goals. This paper proposes an analytical framework for the “goal-resource-information” transmission mechanism of low-carbon pilot policies, and empirically tests the effectiveness of the transmission mechanism of low-carbon pilot policies using multidimensional data at the city level. Results show that through the "goal-resource-information" transmission mechanism, the low-carbon pilot policies significantly reduce the carbon emission intensity of pilot provinces and cities, and the testing of different types of data shows that this conclusion was robust. With the goal-oriented transmission mechanism, the goals are transmitted through hierarchical pressure, making the two batches of pilots achieve significant carbon reduction results, and the carbon reduction results of the first batch of pilots are better than those of the second batch of pilots. With the resource-driven transmission mechanism, carbon emissions trading pilot and environmental policy resources have produced significant superposition or interaction effects based on low-carbon pilot policies, reflecting the synergy of policy resources. With the information-interaction transmission mechanism, effective guidance from the central government and active feedback from local governments have achieved a positive interaction between information “transmission and feedback”, resulting in a long-term enhancement effect of pilot policies. This study has important reference significance for optimizing the transmission mechanism of low-carbon policies and leveraging their carbon reduction effects to support the achievement of the "dual carbon" goals.