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The aim of this study is to use the response surface methodology (<i>RSM</i>) to mathematically model the response parameters and emission of greenhouse gases (<i>GHG</i>) and optimize the drying variables for a carrot dried with the microwave method using various pretreatments. To this end, the influence of the drying parameters (independent), such as microwave power and slice thickness dried by two pretreatments of ultrasonication at 30 °C for 10 min and blanching at 70 <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mo>℃</mo></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> for 2 min, was explored on the dependent (response) parameters including the thermal properties (drying time, effective moisture diffusion coefficient (<i>D_eff</i>), specific energy consumption, energy efficiency, quality features (color changes and shrinkage), and <i>GHG</i> emission (including CO₂ and NO_x). It should be mentioned that the emission of <i>GHG</i> was determined based on the energy consumption of various types of power plants such as the gas turbine steam power turbine, and combined cycle turbines using various fuels such as natural gas, heavy oil, and gas oil. The results indicated that the ultrasonication and blanching pretreatments can decrement the drying time (linearly), energy consumption (linearly or quadratically), shrinkage(quadratically), and color changes(quadratically) and enhance the <i>D_eff</i> (linearly) and energy efficiency (linearly or quadratically) in all samples with R² > 0.86. Moreover, the shortest drying time (42 min), lowest <i>SEC</i> (9.51 MJ/kg), and <i>GHG</i> emission ((4279.74 g CO₂ in the combined cycle turbines plant, and 18.16 g NO_X in the gas turbine plant) with natural gas for both plants) were recorded for the samples pretreated with blanching while the lowest color changes (13.69) and shrinkage (21.29) were observed in the ultrasonicated samples. Based on the optimization results, a microwave power of 300 W and steam power turbine of 2 mm were the best variables with a desirability of about 80% which resulted in the highest-quality products at the lowest <i>GHG</i> emission.