System Simulation and Prediction of the Green Development Level of the Chengdu-Chongqing City Group

Green development is a low-carbon, sustainable model for the achievement of the harmonious development of the economy and nature. Nowadays, the problems of resource scarcity and environmental pollution in the process of economic development are pressing, and the promotion of green development is the general trend. As one of the three growth poles of China’s Yangtze River economic belt, the Chengdu-Chongqing City Group is an important platform to lead toward green development in the western region of China. Based on the understanding of the connotation of green development, this study established a green development-level evaluation system, including 19 indicators in three dimensions: target level, criterion level, and indicator level, and used the entropy weight method to measure the green development level of the Chengdu-Chongqing City Group. In view of the dynamic nature of the green development process, this study constructed a system dynamics model of the green development level of the Chengdu-Chongqing City Group and simulated and compared it between 2022 and 2050 under five shared socio-economic pathway (SSP) scenarios so as to provide a reference basis for future development. The results show that the overall green development level of the Chengdu-Chongqing City Group is on an upward trend, with the highest green development level under the SSP1 path and the lowest under the SSP3 path, and the lagging distance tends to increase further. In the next 30 years, the Chengdu-Chongqing City Group should initially follow SSP2 as the basis for development and then gradually perform a transition to SSP1 by 2035 to achieve real sustainable development, after which it should continue to develop according to the SSP1 path until 2050.