Abstract Transportation infrastructure is a pillar of economic development as well as a main contributor to climate change. Therefore, it is necessary to transform the transport sector investment into climate-resilient, low-carbon transportation choices in order to achieve sustainable transportation infrastructure. In case of China, this transformation might be necessary from the perspective of the “New-style Urbanization” strategy, and for fulfilling this strategy, policy realignment is required. To address this policy-level void in the literature, we explore the influence of public private partnerships investment in transport sector, renewable energy consumption, urbanization on transport-induced carbon emissions in China. For this purpose, we apply Quantile Autoregressive Distributed Lagged (QARDL) method during 1990Q1-2018Q4. Based on the results of the study, a multipronged sustainable development goal (SDG) framework has been suggested, under which SDG 11, SDG 13, and SDG 8 are addressed, while using SDG 17 as a vehicle.