As the world’s largest emitter, China’s reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is crucial for the achievement of global temperature rise goals. In this paper, we employed input-output structural decomposition analysis and index decomposition analysis to assess the factors driving changes in China’s CO2 emissions from 2000 to 2018, with particular attention to the role of renewable energy development. Our results indicate that the slowdown of economic growth and rapid structural change, rather than the shifting fuel mix, were the major forces driving China’s recent slowdown of CO2 emissions ever since 2011. Despite the great importance attached to renewable energy development, non-hydro renewable has played negligible role in reducing China’s CO2 emissions. This suggests that China cannot simply rely on the large-scale development of renewable energies to achieve its Paris 2015 target and must make further drastic cuts that will help keep global temperature rise well below 2 °C above pre-industrial level. Major breakthroughs in scalable low carbon energy sources and technologies will be required, especially in the developing world.