In this analysis, the dynamic nexus between green governance, energy transition, and carbon emissions in the period spanning 1990 and 2022 for the twenty-one member economies of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and partner economies is examined. Employing Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS), Driscoll–Kraay Standard Errors (DKSE), and Quantile-on-Quantile Regression (QQR), this analysis encompasses the effects of the use of renewable energy sources, economic growth, and changes in the population on carbon emissions. Results for the analysis show that the adoption of renewable energy sources, tough environmental regulations, and green innovation play a significant role in offsetting carbon emissions since the results are more pronounced at the tail ends of the distribution of carbon emissions. Conversely, changes in the level of population and economic growth are identified as potential exacerbators of environmental concerns. In offering implications for policymakers, this analysis argues that environmental laws and taxation and green innovation are potential means of improving environmental governance in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and climate change commitments. By addressing the issue of differential environmental effects based on varying levels of carbon emissions, this analysis makes contributions to the expanding literature on sustainable environmental governance in the twenty-first-century energy economy.

In the face of unprecedented challenges to global agricultural systems, it is imperative to comprehend the synergy between resource management and productivity in the quest for regional stability. This study is driven by the imperative to discern the long-term determinants of sustainable agriculture in the integrated context of the Water–Energy–Food–Environment nexus. In this context, the research focuses on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development-European Union (OECD-EU) member countries from 1991 to 2022, examining how these world-leading economies manage the intricate nexus of trade-offs between resource use and agricultural value-added. By employing a sound panel data approach and second-generation econometric analysis to address the complexities of economic interlinkages, we assess the effect of water abstraction, food production, renewable energy transition and greenhouse gas emissions on agricultural output. The findings indicate that while water resources positively influence development, environmental degradation and the starting costs of energy transition are substantial sources of stress on productivity. Crucially, agricultural efficiency, rather than agricultural output, is revealed to be the leading engine of growth.

This study investigates the distributional linkages between core sustainability indicators and economic growth across G20 economies from 2000 to 2024. Employing second-generation panel econometric techniques that account for cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity, we implement the Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) alongside a Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS) baseline. The results obtained empirically show that Energy Intensity exhibits a positive marginal association with annual real GDP per capita growth that increases continuously up to the upper quantiles (0.537 to 0.968 percentage points), which is due to the dominance of production scale of industry during periods of fast economic development. In contrast, Per Capita CO2 Emissions have an increasing negative impact on growth from median up to upper quantiles (−0.220 to −0.397 percentage points), which underlines the growing economic costs of environmental damage. Access to Electricity has regime-specific relevance and has statistically significant positive contribution to growth only in moderate and high growth regimes. Renewable Energy Consumption (REC) has a positive marginal impact on growth in low growth regimes (0.084 percentage points at τ = 0.05), while its marginal contribution diminishes and becomes statistically insignificant in the upper quantiles. These distributional asymmetries demonstrate that uniform macroeconomic strategies are inadequate, underscoring the necessity of regime-targeted sustainability policies across the G20.