Methods to control China's CO2 emissions under its rapid economic development process have received much attention. As the top industrialized and urbanized region in China, Beijing is a good case to show the trends of CO2 emissions in China, and examining how different drivers influence the CO2 emissions direction of Beijing can give valuable insights to other regions on dealing with the emerging climate change issues. To this end, we conducted structural decomposition analysis to quantify the contributions of technological and socio-economic factors to the rapid CO2 emissions growth in Beijing from 1995 to 2007. An increasing final demand level and production structure change led to carbonizing Beijing significantly, while energy intensity improvement was Beijing's sole prominent source on decarbonizing its economic development in 1995-2007. Further, results highlighted the importance of trading and investment in CO2 emissions variations in Beijing. The industrial structure change toward heavy manufacturing and services sectors led to the significant role of these sectors in CO2 emissions growth in Beijing. Beijing's carbonizing process is a reminder to other regions in China to reconsider the direction of their industrial structure change and implement consistent and strict energy-saving policies. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.