There were no details on what changes would be implemented, but Premier Wen Jiabao and other Chinese leaders have been promoting so-called "scientific development" among government officials and stressing balanced and sustainable economic growth.

The government aims to set up a "green GDP" system over the next three to six years, the People's Daily said, quoting officials at a forum co-sponsored by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) and the State Statistical Bureau.

"The new system fine-tunes the existing national economic accounting system because it takes into account resource depletion and environmental costs," the China Daily quoted Pan Yue, deputy director of the SEPA, as saying.

The People's Daily suggested promotions for officials could be tied to resource protection.

"Establishing a green GDP system and making it a criteria for assessing the performance of cadres is an urgent task for sustaining social and economic development," it said.

"China's economic development has almost reached the limits of our resources and environment."

Many analysts inside and outside China have questioned the reliability of Chinese data, prompting authorities last year to say they will start issuing revisions to growth data.

Some economists fear over-reliance on investment to drive the economy, which grew 9.8 percent in the year through the first quarter, could turn the current economic boom into a bust.

Six of the world's 15 most polluted cities are in Asia and the region generates a third of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, UN statistics show.

China regularly suffers from stifling sandstorms - widely attributed to over-grazing, over-ploughing and over-use of water resources - and rapid soil erosion.