The implementation of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) carries profound implications for China’s export trade with the EU. However, a comprehensive analysis of CBAM’s impact on provincial export trade, particularly one grounded in industrial linkages and incorporating diverse policy scenarios, remains limited. To address this gap, this study develops a mechanistic framework based on industrial linkage theory and dynamically integrates key factors such as the scope of industries covered by CBAM, carbon emission accounting boundaries, and carbon pricing into a multi-scenario quantitative model. Leveraging a refined multi-region input–output (MRIO) model, we quantitatively assess the effects of CBAM on China’s provincial exports to the EU under various scenarios. The findings show that CBAM significantly raises export costs, leading to a pronounced decline in the competitiveness of five highly vulnerable industries. As CBAM expands to include sectors covered by the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), the total levies on affected industries increase considerably, ranging from USD 0.07 billion to USD 2.25 billion depending on the scenario. Conversely, seven provincial industries, such as the chemical industry in Shanxi, experience only limited impacts due to their low direct carbon intensity and minimal overall increases in carbon tariffs. Then, the study underscores the pivotal role of China’s domestic carbon pricing mechanism in mitigating the effects of CBAM. Higher domestic carbon prices enhance China’s capacity to respond effectively, thereby reducing the overall impact of the mechanism. By adopting an inter-industry linkage perspective, this study provides new insights into assessing the multidimensional impacts of CBAM on China’s exports to the EU across provinces under different policy design scenarios, providing lessons for different categories of provinces on how to cope with CBAM.

The interprovincial trade embodied carbon emissions plays an important role in the national emission reduction target among China’s provinces. Furthermore, it will affect the smooth start-up of the national carbon trade market as well as the implementation of targets in 2030 for dealing with the climate change. Based on constructed MRIO model, this paper analyzes the embodied carbon emission trade flows among Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and surrounding regions such as Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Inner Mongolia. The results indicate that six provinces have formed different patterns of carbon trade balance, where Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei provinces are in a deficit position, while the other three provinces are in a surplus position. Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei have transferred part of the carbon emissions to the other three provinces, which shows greater heterogeneity among various provinces and provincial different sectors. On basis of the conclusions, this paper puts forward some suggestions on provincial decomposition, responsibility distribution, and provincial collaborative reduction for national emission reduction targets.

The high-quality development of enterprises is the micro-foundation of China’s economic growth model from “speed and scale” to “quality and efficiency,” in which China’s transportation infrastructure, especially the high-speed railways (HSRs), plays an indispensable role. We select the propensity score matching and difference in difference (PSM-DID) model as the identification strategy and empirically analyze the impact of the HSR on the high-quality development of enterprises based on empirical data of 1331 A-share listed companies in China. The results show that the HSR has a significant positive impact on the high-quality development of enterprises. This effect is more substantial for enterprises in the Pearl River Delta, the Triangle of Central China, and small and medium-sized cities. The HSR inhibited the high-quality development of enterprises in the mining, culture, sports, and entertainment industries in eastern and central China. The reason is the restriction of the ability to create social and environmental value and the influence of monopolistic competition. The HSR improves labor mobility, capital expansion, and knowledge spillovers, thereby promoting the high-quality development of enterprises. However, new infrastructure mainly improves the high-quality development of enterprises by promoting knowledge spillovers and technological innovation. This paper contributes to the modernization of China’s HSR network and provides essential insights for the HSR to achieve sustainable development goals.