How to achieve green growth in China's agricultural sector

Green development is the direction of China's agricultural sector. Investigating the main influencing factors of the agricultural sector's CO2 emissions will help plan agricultural development and achieve low-carbon growth. This paper selects 2001-2016 panel data of China's 30 provinces, and uses the nonparametric additive regression models to investigate the agricultural sector's CO2 emissions. The empirical results show that economic growth, financial capacity, and energy intensity all have a pull first, then restrict inverted U-shaped nonlinear effect on CO2 emissions. However, the influencing mechanisms of these three influencing factors are different and need to be paid attention by relevant government departments. More complicated, the impact of urbanization on CO2 emission shows a gentle M-shaped pattern. In addition, an inverse N-shaped nonlinear link exists between trade openness and CO2 emissions. Therefore, government departments should formulate differentiated emission reduction policies at different stages. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.