Impact Assessment and Policy Recommendations of the Green GDP Accounting System on Global Climate Change

Abstract

As global environmental issues become increasingly pressing, the traditional GDP (Gross Domestic Product) indicator is proving insufficient to comprehensively reflect the sustainability of national economies, particularly in assessing environmental impacts. To address this, the concept of Green GDP (GGDP) has emerged as an alternative economic accounting measure, which incorporates environmental degradation and resource consumption into the national economic accounting system. This study establishes an AHP-CRITIC-CEI integrated model to analyze the feasibility of GGDP reform and examine its impact on global climate change. Firstly, through literature review, four key areas-land use change, agricultural activities, fossil fuel dependence, and aerosol emissions-were selected as primary indicators influencing GGDP accounting, and a comprehensive indicator system was constructed. Using the AHP and CRITIC methods, the weights and composite scores of the indicators were calculated and compared with global heat storage changes to validate the effectiveness of the model. Furthermore, the E-K-means clustering method was employed to classify 44 countries into environmentally friendly, moderate, and environmentally unfriendly categories. The findings revealed that countries adopting GGDP reforms predominantly fell into the environmentally friendly category, suggesting that the transition to GGDP is beneficial for mitigating climate change. Additionally, the study used Chile as a case study to conduct an in-depth analysis of the economic and environmental impacts of GGDP reform on the country, offering relevant policy recommendations and a 20-year implementation plan. The results demonstrate that adopting the GGDP accounting system not only effectively contributes to mitigating climate change but also provides a more accurate assessment of a country's economic health in terms of sustainability. Finally, the strengths and weaknesses of the model were discussed, and the sensitivity of its parameters was analyzed, providing valuable insights for further refinement of the GGDP accounting system in the future.