Abstract: In order to promote the continuous and stable decoupling of urban carbon emissions and economic growth in the Yangtze River Economic Belt and take the lead in completing the strategic mission of “double carbon” goal, this paper puts forward the concepts and identification methods of “decoupling trap” and “decoupling authenticity”, and then combines the Tapio decoupling model with the Logit model to analyze and test the “decoupling authenticity” status of carbon emissions and economic growth in 110 prefecture-level and above cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2006 to 2019, and explores the main driving forces to break the “decoupling trap”. The results show that: (1) The 110 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt mainly show strong and weak decoupling. The expansion connection and growth negative decoupling show sporadic distribution, and the overall decoupling state is good. However, the decoupling state has spatial heterogeneity and time series fluctuation characteristics. Huangshi, Xiangtan and other cities have a re-coupling phenomenon, falling into a “decoupling trap” and showing a “pseudo-decoupling” state. (2) “True and false decoupling” cities have significant regional characteristics, “true decoupling” cities are mainly located in the downstream areas, and most of them are provincial capitals, cities falling into the “decoupling trap” are mainly distributed in the upper and middle reaches. (3) Improving technological innovation capability, optimizing agglomeration scale and increasing foreign direct investment are important measures for cities to achieve endogenous decoupling and avoid falling into the “decoupling trap”.