Global climate change is becoming more and more serious, and carbon emission reduction has become the focus of international attention. Based on Web of Science and China Knowledge Network database, this study adopts literature research method, comparative research method, bibliometric method and scientific knowledge mapping method to systematically analyze the literature related to carbon emission reduction pathway from 2009 to 2021. The study selected VOSviewer, CiteSpace and HistCite software to visualize and analyze the literature data, revealing the time distribution, institutional distribution, keyword co-occurrence and emergence characteristics of carbon emission reduction research. The results show that the number of Chinese carbon emission reduction research literature surged from 2009 to 2011, and reached a peak in 2021; the Department of Management and Economics of Tianjin University is the institution with the most publications, with a total of 15 publications; nine highfrequency publication authors published a total of 48 articles, which accounted for 7.97% of the total number of articles; the keyword clustering analysis formed nine different clusters, with a network density of 0.0124, a Q-value of 0.5274, S-value of 0.8613, and the clustering results are highly credible. The study shows that the research on carbon emission reduction in China mainly focuses on profile description, emission reduction methods and low carbon economy, but there is insufficient research on key contents such as emission reduction technologies, carbon neutralization methods and emission reduction strategies. Future research should pay more attention to carbon emission reduction technological innovation, carbon neutralization paths and effective strategies to promote lowcarbon economic and social transformation.
