The present disclosure provides methods and apparatuses for HARQ retransmission on an unlicensed carrier in an LTE-LAA system. A method in the base station includes: performing a CCA detection on the unlicensed carrier to determine energy on the unlicensed carrier and, at the same time, initiating an HARQ discarding timer for the unlicensed carrier, when the base station and a UE operate on the unlicensed carrier; comparing the determined energy with a predetermined CCA threshold; if the determined energy on the unlicensed carrier is not smaller than the CCA threshold until the HARQ discarding timer is expired, giving up the HARQ retransmission on the unlicensed carrier; and if the energy is detected to be smaller than the CCA threshold before the HARQ discarding timer is expired, continuing the HARQ retransmission on the unlicensed carrier.