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The Chinese government has announced ambitious carbon reduction goals to address climate change, however, there has been limited scientific attention to the achievement of deep decarbonization in regions with insufficient economic development. Moreover, the complex impacts of climate change mitigation on energy system, environment and economic development remain unclear in Northwest China. Here we construct a comprehensive evaluation model system to evaluate the effects of different climate mitigation pathways in Qinghai, Ningxia, Gansu and Xinjiang provinces. Results show that the four provinces need to vigorously increase the share of electricity that consumed in final energy to 53.1–60.0% and 52.9–62.0% for 2 °C and 1.5 °C target, respectively, and reduce total energy demand to 11.6–44.4 Mtoe and 8.2–34.1 Mtoe in 2050. Meanwhile, the CO 2 emissions for their energy systems will reach peak by 2025 at lower values. Moreover, the synergies of CO 2 reduction are most conducive to abating SO 2 pollution and also contributing to decreasing PM 2.5 concentrations. Additionally, the GDP losses in 2050 fluctuate from 5.0 to 21.7 billion USD in the 2 °C scenario to 11.5–52.7 billion USD in the 1.5 °C scenario. Our study provides practical guidance on achieving carbon reductions in less developed regions of China and lays foundations to promote decarbonization of energy systems in other provinces. • Realizing climate goals requires low-carbon energy systems led by electricity. • Energy-related carbon emissions in Northwest China will peak by 2025. • More ambitious climate and clean air policies are needed for air quality improvement. • Economic loss shows an upward trend in the future under climate targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Distribution effect of carbon-food nexus for Chinese cities were explored. • Several methods built using the spatial decoupling index were proposed. • Chinese cities exhibited varying degrees of the distribution effect over the period. • Driver pattern of carbon-food nexus has changed over the years. Climate change mitigation and food security are sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. Despite extensive studies focused on the nexus of different SDGs and corresponding mechanisms, the distribution effect of carbon-food nexus and its driver has received limited attention, hindering policy making for balancing pathways of regional emission reduction and food production improvement. The present study explored the distribution effect (i.e., spatial performance) of carbon-food nexus from multiple perspectives (namely, status quo, drivers, and trend) based on a unique city-level dataset from 2005 to 2017. To this end, we proposed the spatial decoupling index, the corresponding decomposition and nonparametric models for capturing the multi-perspective distribution effects. The results indicated that Chinese cities, categorized by population scale and economic structure, exhibited varying degrees of distributions of carbon-food nexus over the period. Moreover, the driver pattern of carbon-food nexus was noted to have changed, wherein investment efficiency and scale were positive drivers. Furthermore, we showed that a more developed city's economy was statistically significantly associated with higher carbon emission and lower food production. Therefore, related stakeholders should take more actions such as strengthening capital accumulation and joint management of carbon intensity, for improving the distribution effect of the overall city-level carbon-food nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]