Is renewable energy a path towards sustainable development?

In the process of global environmental governance, renewable energy (RE) has been the focus of government attention as an effective avenue to enhance environmental sustainability. Hence, this paper utilises the rolling-window Granger causality test to probe the connection between RE and sustainable development (SD) and further probe whether RE can be a solution to reduce air pollution and boost ecological sustainability. The results reveal that RE has both positive and negative impacts on SD, which means that RE can effectively mitigate the ecological burden and progress toward SD in a certain period. This favourable impact supports the conclusions of the energy-environment model, which indicates that the increasing share of RE is beneficial to improving environmental benefits. Conversely, the rise in SD drives more sustainable investment in clean energy projects and further contributes to RE generation growth. However, economic and government policy changes will affect sustainable investment in the renewable sector and transmit negative shocks to RE development. In the context of the increasingly severe environmental situation, the government should take some proactive measures favouring RE development and ecological sustainability to mitigate ecological deterioration and boost environmental quality.