Promoting energy efficiency and reducing emissions in agriculture is a suitable approach to achieving the green transformation of agriculture under the dual-carbon goal. The paper conducted an empirical analysis by using panel data from 31 provinces， municipalities，and autonomous regions between 2011 and 2021. The analysis examined the relationship between agricultural mechanization，environmental regulation，and their interaction terms，and agricultural carbon emissions by using fixed-effects models， moderating-effects models，and other methods. The study shows that agricultural mechanization leads to an increase in agricultural carbon emissions. Specifically， for every one unit increase in agricultural mechanization， agricultural carbon emissions increase by 0.237 units. On the other hand，environmental regulation reduces carbon emissions. Specifically， for every unit of environmental regulation，agricultural carbon emissions decrease by 0.225 units. The moderating effect suggests that there is a moderating effect of environmental regulation between agricultural mechanization and agricultural carbon emissions，with the positive effect of environmental regulation on agricultural carbon emissions reduction offsetting part of the negative effect of agricultural mechanization on agricultural carbon emissions reduction. The presence of heterogeneity implies that agricultural mechanization is more likely to lead to a reduction in agricultural carbon emissions in the main food-producing regions and the central region，as opposed to the non-main food-producing regions and the eastern and western regions. Accordingly， the following recommendations are made as follows: upgrading agricultural machinery and developing new green agricultural machinery, strengthening government supervision and environmental regulations, and tailoring the development of each region to reduce agricultural carbon emissions.