The exploration/exploitation perspective is a well-known concept in the strategic management field;however,it has seldom been used to explore and analyze strategy at a national level.This study utilizes this perspective to analyze China\'s eco-innovation mode in response to climate change.By categorizing eco-innovation into radical and incremental eco-innovation,we examine the relationship between these concepts using Y02 patents as a proxy and panel data from 30 Chinese provinces from 2004 to 2015.The results show that eco-innovation as a whole as well as both radical and incremental innovations are drivers for reducing carbon emissions.Further-more,contradictory to most previous empirical results related to the complementarity hypothesis,we find a complementary relationship between radical and incremental eco-innovation.These results collectively represent China\'s unique eco-innovation mode,confirming the assumed diversity of eco-innovation models in different contexts.The results also show the significant positive effects of economic development,urbanization level,in-dustrial structure,and China\'s opening up on carbon emissions,indicating that economic and social development have not yet been completely dissociated from carbon emissions in China.