To strengthen the national efforts to meet Paris Agreement Targets, China has announced its carbon neutrality goal in 2020 and launched the national carbon market in 2021. Regional carbon emissions accounting is important for the allocation of regional mitigation targets and emission allowances in the policy-making of the national carbon market. This paper integrates the trade in value-added (TiVA) accounting method to comprehensively analyze the evolution of the carbon emissions transfer network in China along the national value chain (NVC) and further clarifies the changing roles of regions participating in the network during 2007–2017. The results indicate that the inter-regional carbon emissions transfer structure in China has changed from the pattern of “transferring from inland areas to developed areas” to a new pattern of a “carbon emissions transfer network with the Yangtze River Delta and the Central regions as pivots”. This paper provides insightful results for China to strike a balance between economic development and environmental governance among regions in achieving carbon neutrality.
