Objective/Meaning  Population urbanization is the crucial driver to realize the green and low-carbon development of agriculture. Studying the impact of population urbanization on the agricultural carbon emissions aims to provide innovative pathways for realizing the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas and achieving the goal of “double carbon”.

Methods/Procedures  Based on the provincial-level panel data from 2001 to 2022, the quasi-natural experiment of household registration system reform was used to characterize the population urbanization, so as to scientifically evaluate the impact of population urbanization on the agricultural carbon emissions.

Results/Conclusions  The research conclusions showed that: (1) The household registration system reform could significantly reduce the agricultural carbon emissions. After a variety of robustness tests, the conclusion was still valid. (2) Agricultural scale management and agricultural mechanization were the important paths for the reform of household registration system to reduce the agricultural carbon emissions. (3) The agricultural carbon emission reduction effect of the household registration system reform was effective in the long term, but in the short term, there was no agricultural carbon emission reduction effect. Moreover, the agricultural carbon emission reduction effect of the household registration system reform was only significant in the non-major grain producing areas, but not significant in the major grain producing areas.