The embodied carbon emission limit is a key parameter for quantitatively regulating carbon emissions from building structures and facilitating the achievement of carbon reduction targets. Starting from the social carbon emission reduction pathway toward carbon neutrality, a carbon emission reduction target decomposition approach is proposed based on the proportions of newly built and existing buildings in building structure retention and demand, which provides limit presetting references for existing structure maintenance and new structure design. Then, the expected development scenarios of building construction in China are established referring to the carbon peaking and neutrality goals in China, and correspondingly, the carbon emission limits for four typical scenarios, i. e., maintaining the status quo, conventional expectation, regulating demolition, and reduction expectation, are respectively evaluated to be 442.6 kg CO₂e·m^-2, 456.2 kg CO₂e·m^-2, 485.9 kg CO₂e·m^-2, and 616.0 kg CO²e·m^-2 (the designed service life is 50 years). Besides, the expected trends of carbon emission limits during the year 2022 and 2060 have also been estimated, and the contributions of emission reduction measures, including the amount regulation of newly built structures and the lifespan extension of existing structures, to the relaxation of carbon emission limits for individual structures have been clarified. Furthermore, suggestions for research related to carbon emission limit are provided from the aspects of probabilistic regulation, quantification of regional characteristics, feasibility of the target achievement, and data-driven refinement.