A Virtual Power Plant (VPP) has the ability to increase renewable energy consumption by aggregating distributed energy on the power generation side. Because of the uncertainty of renewable energy output and the lack of cost competitiveness, the operation of virtual power plants often encounters the problem of wind and light power curtailment. This paper establishes a virtual power plant economic dispatch model that takes into account the electricity consumption behavior under a carbon trading mechanism. This model allows renewable energy to participate in carbon trading and promote the coordination between the user side and the power generation side. In view of the characteristics of this model, such as bi-level, non-linear, and semi-continuity, a reformulation method combining linear approximation, KKT conditions, and perspective transformation theory is proposed, leading to a single-level integer second-order cone formulation of the original model. The examples show that improving the consumption of renewable energy could increase the emission reduction benefits of virtual power plants. In addition, the carbon trading mechanism has the ability to increase the total consumption of renewable energy, and the response of users has the ability to improve the distribution of wind energy utilization. A reasonable tariff mechanism can further promote synergies between the two abilities. This work is supported by Beijing Innovation Base Cultivation and Development Special Project in 2017 (No. Z171100002217024) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71271081).