Sectoral changing patterns of China's green GDP considering climate change: An investigation based on the economic input-output life cycle assessment model

The rapid growth of energy-intensive and high-emission industries has underpinned China's economic boom over the past few decades. Since her economic development entered the new normal phase in 2013, China has faced the challenge of mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while achieving medium-high economic growth. Transforming the economic development pattern and restructuring the economy is a principal solution, and one important prerequisite is discerning great sectoral disparities of GHG emissions and corresponding environmental costs because the diversity of characteristics among different sectors causes the pollutants that are discharged to vary. Hence, this paper aims to assess the environmental costs of China's total and sectoral GHG emissions. Based on the System of Environmental and Economic Accounts and using the economic input-output life cycle assessment model, this study calculates the green GDP and green output value of 27 sectors to reflect the environmental costs of GHG emissions in China during 1991-2016. The findings are as follows: (1) while China's direct GHG emissions increased from 3,040.60 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO(2)eq) to 10,641.10 MtCO(2)eq during 1991-2014, declining trends were observed in the total and 16 sectors' direct GHG emissions in the subsequent two years; (2) although the ratios of direct GHG emissions to total GHG emissions in most sectors decreased, total GHG emissions in eight sectors rose first and then fell, and in 15 sectors continued to rise; (3) China's green GDP grew from 2,003.88 billion Chinese Yuan to 26,245.25 billion Chinese Yuan during 1991-2016, and the difference between China's GDP and green GDP decreased from 2.73% to 1.02%; and (4) differences between the output value and green output value decreased in over 20 sectors. Finally, some policy implications are given from the perspective of some key sectors of the Manufacturing industry, Agricultural sector, and Transport, storage, and post sector. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.