This paper identifies the driving forces of CO₂ emissions from 1990 to 2014 in Xinjiang’s transport sector based on the logarithmic mean divisia index (LMDI) method. Then we introduce the decoupling index to further quantitatively analyze the delinking indicators on the transport sector’s growth and environmental pressures. The results indicate that:

1. CO₂ emissions increased significantly with an average annual growth rate of 8.7%. On the contrary, energy intensity has declined constantly over the study period.
2. Economic growth, population size, industrial structure, internal structural and energy mix have proven to contribute to CO₂ emissions increases. Moreover, economic growth plays a critical role in the increment with a contribution of 13.23 million tons, followed by population size and internal structure.
3. Xinjiang’s transport witnessed a fluctuating decoupling progress with weak decoupling as the theme. In particular, the decoupling state moved from weak decoupling in 1991-2000 with short-term volatility to weak decoupling in 2001-2010. However, the coupling relationship was strengthened during 2011-2014.
4. Energy intensity is the most important factor for explaining the dissociation in Xinjiang’s transport sector. However, internal structural, industrial structure, and population size has turned out to be the obstacles in decoupling progress.