A shortage of natural resources is currently handicapping further socio-economic development in China. The Chinese government has therefore implemented several measures to limit energy use and reduce harmful emissions, with a particular focus on the provinces. We calculated and compared the regional carbon emission efficiency of China from 2006 to 2013 using the Charnes-Cooper-Rhodes, Banker-Charnes-Cooper, slackbased measurement models and the epsilon-based measure of efficiency model. In addition, we compared our results with those of other local and overseas scholars. The 30 provinces of China were divided into eight economic regions and we analyzed the differences in carbon emission efficiency of these regions. Finally, we used the DEA-Tobit model to study the relationship between economic scale, industrial structure, environmental regulation, dependence on foreign trade and foreign capital, technological innovation, and carbon emission efficiency. Our main conclusions include: 1) the efficiency value calculated by EBM was more reasonable compared with that of the other models, 2) significant differences were found in the carbon emission efficiency between the regions, and 3) economic scale, industrial structure, dependence on foreign trade and foreign capital, and technological innovation were the positive factors. Furthermore, environmental regulation was found to have no significant effect on carbon emission efficiency, whereas regional characteristics had negative effects.