This paper constructs data from 30 provinces in mainland China from 1997 to 2016 and mainly adopts panel data fixed effects models to investigate how the promotion pressure on local officials affects regional carbon emissions. Our empirical results show that the relationship between the promotion pressure on local officials and regional carbon emissions has a dynamic evolution characteristic during our research period. Specifically, the promotion pressure on local officials is positively associated with regional carbon emissions before 2009; however, this relationship weakened after China’s carbon emission regulatory policies were strengthened in 2010. Furthermore, our heterogeneity analysis results show that the effect of promotion pressure on regional carbon emissions is moderated by the regional industrial structure, the economic development level, regional innovation capability, the tenure of officials and the age of officials. The conclusions of this study are helpful for understanding the driving factors of regional carbon emissions from the political economy perspective, and they also have implications for the formulation of performance evaluation and carbon emission reduction policies.