It is not clear whether residents’ cognition of climate change can effectively motivate them to carry out carbon emission reduction. Previous studies only focus on the impact of residents’ climate change cognition on single carbon emission reduction behavior and ignore the impact of environmental efficacy perception on this behavior. Different from that, using the data of CGSS 2010, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of both residents’ climate change cognition and environmental efficacy perception on different carbon emission reduction behaviors. The results show that residents’ cognition of the causes of climate change has a significant positive impact on three carbon emission reduction behaviors (waste classification, driving reduction and energy saving), while residents’ cognition of the hazards of climate change and environmental efficacy perception respectively have a significant positive impact on two carbon emission reduction behaviors (driving reduction and energy saving). Compared with the impact on waste classification, residents’ cognition of the causes and hazards of climate change, and environmental efficacy perception have a greater impact on driving reduction and energy saving. Environmental efficacy perception is an important variable that influencing residents’ carbon emission reduction behavior, and the impacts of residents’ climate change cognition and environmental efficacy perception on carbon emission reduction behavior are heterogeneous.