Using China’s provincial panel data from 2006 to 2016, this paper develops a dynamic panel data model to investigate the impact and mechanism of green credit on carbon emissions at the national and regional levels. According to the findings, green credit significantly reduces carbon emissions, with the eastern region having the greatest reduction effect. Green credit, with the exception of the western region, has a strong positive impact on disruptive low-carbon innovation. When green credit is combined with disruptive low-carbon innovation, both can significantly reduce carbon emissions; however, the green credit impact diminishes. It can be concluded that disruptive low-carbon innovation has a mediation effect on green credit’s contribution to carbon emission reduction. As a result, China should broaden the scope of green credit, concentrate on providing high-quality low-carbon patented technology to science and technology enterprises, and alleviate their financing constraints. Furthermore, these enterprises should increase their output of disruptive low-carbon innovation while lowering carbon emissions through technological innovation.

The emissions trading policy is considered a key measure for China to achieve its “double carbon” goal. In this study, two types of Tapio carbon decoupling models are constructed, panel data for 30 provinces and cities in China from 2004 to 2017 are selected, and the difference-in-differences (DID) model is used to evaluate the role of carbon trading policies in carbon decoupling. The study shows that carbon emissions trading policies can significantly promote carbon decoupling in China and that the formulation and implementation of such environmental regulations promote carbon decoupling with the help of two intermediary variables: gray technology innovation and clean technology innovation. Based on the findings, it is concluded that China should actively build a unified national carbon trading market, ensure the synergistic coupling of emission reduction targets and economic growth targets, and effectively play the role of the carbon trading market in inducing and promoting low-carbon technology innovation to help decouple carbon.