Given that compensation for ecological and economic benefits is an effective way to address the imbalance between the coordinated development of regional ecological environment and economic growth, this study aims to explore the horizontal ecological compensation mechanism under the differentiated responsibilities of different regions in China. In this paper, the ecological deficit and surplus zones are divided by ecological footprint analysis, and the evolution of the ecological deficit and surplus zones and their per capita coal consumption in 30 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) from 2004 to 2018 are analyzed. Afterwards, the panel threshold model is used to validate the conclusion. The results show that there is an inverted U-shaped feature between ecological environment and economic growth in each region, which further verifies the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). In addition, we also find that the eastern regions are mostly ecological deficit areas, while the central and western regions are mostly ecological surplus areas. In other words, the economically developed eastern regions should give a certain amount of ecological compensation to the underdeveloped central and western regions. The research results can provide new ideas and methods for the study of regional horizontal ecological compensation.