The effect of China's public climate concern on ESG disclosure

•We find public climate concern negatively affects ESG disclosure.•Increased public climate concern raises corporate risk, harming ESG performance.•Firms with less environmental regulatory pressure are more susceptible to the negative impact of climate concerns on ESG.•The negative effect is mitigated by strong CEO hometown identity and improved resource access. Using a textual analysis approach, we investigate the impact of public climate concern on corporate ESG disclosure. The results reveal a significant negative correlation between the two. Our mechanistic analysis indicates that the exacerbation of public climate concerns amplifies firms' risk exposure, which confirms the negative effect on ESG performance. The negative effects of public climate concerns on ESG disclosure is heightened for companies with weaker CEO hometown identity, higher resource costs, lower environmental regulatory pressures, and colder climates in northern China. These results emphasize the significance of public climate concerns as a critical external factor affecting corporate ESG disclosure.