To fill the shortcomings of traditional research that ignores the driver’s own spatial characteristics and provide a theoretical support to formulate suitable emission reduction policies in different regions across China. In this pursuit, based on the panel data of provincial CO₂ emission in 2007, 2012, and 2017, the present study employed the extended environmental impact assessment model (STIRPAT-GWR model) to study the effect of population, energy intensity, energy structure, urbanization and industrial structure on the CO₂ emissions in 29 provinces across China. The empirical results show that the effect of drivers on the CO₂ emissions exhibited significant variations among the different provinces. The effect of population in the southwest region was significantly lower than that of the central and eastern regions. Provinces with stronger energy intensity effects were concentrated in the central and western regions. The effect of energy structure in the eastern and northern regions was relatively strong, and gradually weakened towards the southeast region. The areas with high urbanization effect were concentrated in the central and the eastern regions. Furthermore, significant changes were observed in the high-effect regions of the industrial structure in 2017. The high-effect area showed a migration from the northwest and northeast regions in 2007 and 2012, respectively, to the southwest and southeast regions in 2017. Urbanization showed the strongest effect on the CO₂ emissions, followed by population and energy intensity, and the weakest effect was exhibited by the energy and industrial structure. Thus, the effects of population and energy structure showed a downward trend, in contrary to the effect of urbanization on the CO₂ emissions in China.