In order to explore the impact of carbon emission trading on enterprise performance, based on theoretical analysis, this paper uses the quasi-natural experiment formed by China’s carbon emission trading, takes China’s A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2022 as the research object, sets the enterprises participating in the carbon emission trading pilot as the treatment group, and other enterprises as the control group. The propensity score matching and difference-in-differences (PSM-DID) model is constructed for analysis. The empirical results show that carbon emission trading has a negative effect on short-term performance and a positive effect on long-term performance.