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Through an analysis of data gathered from Chinese firms surveyed by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), this paper studies the motivations of Chinese firms to respond to the CDP. The results indicate that (1) Chinese firms are more inclined to respond to the CDP survey for the sense-making motivation; (2) Chinese firms are less inclined to respond to the CDP survey due to the existence of proprietary costs for information disclosure; (3) self-interested political motivation is a negative motivation for Chinese firms to respond to the CDP survey; state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are less inclined to respond to the CDP survey than are non-SOEs; and (4) Chinese firms did not consider a financing motivation when deciding whether to respond to the CDP survey. However, the results of our further research show that if firms actively respond to the CDP survey, their financing constraints can be significantly reduced. This paper studies the four motivations for Chinese firms to respond to the CDP survey, contributing to the research of carbon emission disclosure. This paper highlights the importance of corporate carbon awareness for carbon emission disclosure, builds an understanding of the internal driving forces of response to the CDP survey among Chinese firms, and thus promotes the increase of Chinese corporate disclosure of carbon emission.