<p>Drawing on local government work reports, this paper constructs an index of government environmental attention to examine its impact on the green economy and its underlying mechanisms. This paper further investigates heterogeneity across levels of political constraints and marketization and assesses spatial spillover effects. The results indicate that government environmental attention has a significant positive impact on green economy. Greater attention to environmental issues by governments stimulates corporate green technology innovation, enhances public environmental awareness, and thereby promotes green economy growth. The positive effect of government environmental attention on green economy is more pronounced in cities with stronger political constraints and higher levels of marketization. However, while government environmental attention promotes local green economy, it generates negative spatial spillovers by displacing pollution-intensive industries (pollution refuge) and diverting green innovation resources (resource siphoning) from neighboring regions. These findings imply that governments should integrate environmental attention indicators into performance appraisals and strengthen inter‐regional coordination to mitigate negative spillovers and promote coordinated green growth.</p> Graphical Abstract <p></p>