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Global warming has emerged as a serious threat to humans and sustainable development. China is under increasing pressure to curb its carbon emissions as the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide. By combining the Tapio decoupling model and the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) framework, this paper explores the relationship between China's carbon emissions and economic growth. Based on panel data of 29 provinces from 2007 to 2016, this paper quantitatively estimates the nexus of carbon emissions and economic development for the whole nation and the decoupling status of individual provinces. There is empirical evidence for the conventional EKC hypothesis, showing that the relationship between carbon emissions and per capita gross domestic product (GDP) is an inverted U shape and that the inflection point will not be attained soon. Moreover, following the estimation results of the Tapio decoupling model, there were significant differences between individual provinces in decoupling status. As a result, differentiated and targeted environmental regulations and policies regarding energy consumption and carbon emissions should be reasonably formulated for different provinces and regions based on the corresponding level of economic development and decoupling status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has committed to ambitious targets to reduce its carbon emissions in the next decades, in order to combat climate change and improve the environment. The realization of the targets depends on the fair and effective mitigation plans of all provinces. However, with varying ecological and environmental conditions and social-economic development, it is a critical issue to quantify the provinces' efforts equally. This paper proposed a comprehensive fE index in coordinating ecology, equity and economy, by accounting for carbon emissions and sinks to characterize provincial carbon emission status in China, from 2000 to 2017, which shows a spatial pattern of "boundary high, central low". The provinces with higher fE value (>1.5) in boundary areas can be seen as "relative equality" provinces with good ecology circulation, equity and economic efficiency. The provinces with lower fE value (<0.7) in central areas around Bohai Bay are regarded as "severe inequality" provinces, and are identified as the hot-spot provinces, which have emitted more CO2 than their equity share by occupying the carbon emission space of other provinces in recent decades. These results could provide a reference for a provincial guide for carbon reduction and sustainable development of the low-carbon economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]