Abstract
Although OECD countries face some of the pervasive levels of sustainable development amidst the recent call for climate action, energy justice and energy transition and its associated effects, the avalanche of literature on this issue tends to concentrate on high-income regions where data is more readily available. This disparity hindered efforts to improve long-term growth, alleviate pressure on the environment, and foster economic recovery. To disentangle whether this subpar performance of sustainable development is due to the application of clean energy or fossil energy, this study assesses and compares the two main types of energy-clean energy and fossil energy-within the context of OECD countries, focusing on their sustainable development impact across various quantiles. In this paper, the novel Method of Moment Quantile Regression was employed, with data ranging from 2000 to 2023 across OECD countries. The findings indicate that renewable energy used as a proxy for clean energy corresponds to improvement in sustainable development across all quantiles. Conversely, non-renewable energy tends to cause a decline in sustainable development across all quantiles. Furthermore, the findings of the study showed that environmental regulations, globalization and financial access improves the level of sustainable development. The study using a bootstrap quantile methodology for robustness testing, revealed comparable outcomes, particularly regarding the direction of the relationship between the variables of interest. The study recommended that the government of OECD countries should encourage the adoption of clean energy while placing premium on strict environmental policies to effectively achieve sustainable development.