In the global specialization, a Global Value Chain (GVC) has been formed across economies. Countries are trying to improve the position of manufacturing in GVC to alleviate environmental constraints they faced. Based on the panel data of 60 countries in the world from 2000 to 2011, the carbon efficiency and the GVC position index are both evaluated, and the impact of position of manufacturing in GVC on carbon efficiency is further analyzed. Our results show that there is a significant positive correlation between them. Moreover, the impact is associated with the level of economic development, which means that promotion of the GVC embedding degree could optimize energy efficiency and reduce emissions more significantly in developing countries with relatively backward economies than in those developed countries. After further subdividing the manufacturing industry into three types: labor-intensive, resource-intensive and technology-intensive, we find that improving the position of the technology-intensive manufacturing industry in GVC has more significant positive effect on carbon efficiency than the other two types.