Greening the GDP——Exploration of the Relationship between Economy and Environment

Abstract

GDP has always been regarded as a significant indicator to measure the overall economic volume of a country. However, blindly pursuing high economic growth may cause waste of natural resources and damage to the ecological environment, which is not conducive to the long-term and sustainable economic development of the country. This paper aims to explore the deep relationship between economy and resources and environment through the study of Green GDP. Using CoalProducts, Fossil fuels (% equivalent primary energy), PM2.5 air pollution, mean annual exposure (micrograms per cubic meter) and other effective indicators, we developed a TOPSIS model based on The System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA) to assess impacts on climate mitigation. It collects data from reliable sources, including around 42 countries and 18 statistical indicators. In addition, through the forecast of future resource consumption, population and GDP changes, it is further concluded that it is worthwhile to choose Green GDP as an indicator to measure the economy. This study takes China as an example, and the empirical results show that using Green GDP instead of GDP to calculate the national economy can effectively mitigate the negaitve impact of climate, which has certain reference value for the sustainable development and green economy construction of countries around the world.