Carbon peaking trajectory links to development of a coupled urbanization-industrialization-energy system

On the way towards carbon emission peaking, the influence of the interactions within urbanization, industrialization and energy consumption on the peaking process from the perspective of system evolution remains exclusive. Herein, targeting 30 Chinese provincial regions, we design an integrated framework consisting of 21 indices to represent a coupled urbanization-industrialization-energy (UIE) system. The coupling and coordination within the UIE system are measured and linked to regional carbon emission trajectory during 2000–2021 to explore the influence mechanism on its peaking process. The findings reveal levels of the coupling and coordination ranging from 0.30 to 0.99, with an inverted U-shaped pattern for the coupling and a progression from rapid to gradual growth for the coordination. The comprehensive coupling-coordination degree for regions has not yet reached the state beneficial for achieving the emission peak. The development quality of urbanization subsystem and industrialization subsystem is progressively relieving reliance on the energy subsystem, while a complete decoupling from carbon emissions has not been achieved. The influences of driving forces of the coordination exhibit spatiotemporal variations. The region-specific insights into steering the UIE system towards peaking carbon emissions with emphasis on the key driving forces are of practical significance.