Climate change has become a great challenge to the human development. Confronted with the same problem,in 2009, China officially made a commitment to cutting down greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP in 2020 by 40 - 45% compared to that in 2005. Because energy-conserving emission reduction is the inherent requirement for Chinas sustainable development,so no matter how negotiation progress of international climate is China will take the road to green development of low-carbon unswervingly. Carbon emission reduction goal of the country set in 2009 needs realizing at the regional level finally. Chinas urbanization is at the important stages of the changes in strategies; the promotion of the urbanization needs to explore the balanced,coordinated and sustainable development road. The carbon emission goal set by China and the unbalanced,uncoordinated and unsustainable development of Chinas urbanization determined that low-carbon development and regional balanced development are both challenges as well as opportunities. This article emphatically reviews the provincial carbon emissions accounting methods,the provincial regional carbon emissions layout and transfer patterns,and provincial carbon emissions causes,performance and target decomposition. By summarizing domestic and foreign relevant research systematically,this paper objectively analyzes and evaluates the research status of the above four questions and problems. Finally,the Chinese provincial carbon emissions differences of key areas and development direction is prospected,and references for policy research and theory research are provided. In order to establish scientific and reasonable reduction policies to promote the differentiation of balanced development of the regional area,a further study on several issues as follows needs to be conducted: firstly,provincial carbon accounting methods should be reestablished with a unified standard. The accounting methods from the perspective of producers and consumers to share responsibility will be the direction for future research. Secondly,the relationship between regional industrial transfer and carbon emission induced by enterprisesdecision-making from the microscopic view is the difficult point of the research in the future. Thirdly,total carbon reduction target region decomposition is a kind of administrative means to control carbon emissions policy tools. How to build an effective evaluation mechanism to stimulate local officials and change the mode of decision-making of the enterprises is a thorny problem in the regional decomposition of carbon emission reduction. Effective setting of total goal is the precondition of cap-and-trade. Fourthly,the goal ofCommon but Differentiated Responsibilityfor different industries and regions must be consistent with national carbon emission strategy while reflecting the characteristics of different industries and regions. Owing to the fact that China is vast in territory,reasonable policy design needs to reflect industry and regional characteristics,and different trades and area need to adopt different promotion tactics stage by stage. Several major issues of the differentiation research of provincial carbon emission reduction are limited by the valid data required and challenged by the uncertainty of economic and social development.