Carbon emission reduction is an important aspect to achieve high-quality development of the environment, upgrading industrial structure and technological innovation are key ways to affect carbon emission. Based on a moderated mediation model, this paper builds a theoretical framework of the relationship among upgrading industrial structure, technological innovation and carbon emission under the embedding of environmental regulation, analyzes and empirically tests the mechanism of upgrading industrial structure and technological innovation on carbon emission and the moderating effect of environmental regulation among the three variables. The results show that: upgrading industrial structure and technological innovation can significantly reduce carbon emission.Technological innovation plays a partial mediating role in the impact of upgrading industrial structure on carbon emission.Environmental regulation plays a significant positive moderating role in the impact of upgrading industrial structure on technological innovation and the impact of technological innovation on carbon emission.