Energy policy sequencing for SDG-aligned transitions in East Asia–Pacific: Evidence of stage-dependent effects and threshold dynamics

The East Asia–Pacific (EAP) region faces the urgent challenge of steering energy transitions while sustaining progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study frames coal-based electricity, fossil fuel consumption, energy intensity, renewable electricity output, and renewable energy use as policy levers, assessing their distributional effects on SDG performance in 14 EAP countries from 2000 to 2024 using system GMM and panel quantile regression. Results show that fossil fuels can support early-stage development but lose significance, or become harmful, beyond median SDG levels, indicating a turning point where lock-in effects outweigh short-term gains. Quantitatively, fossil fuel consumption shows positive and statistically significant effects at lower SDG quantiles but becomes insignificant or negative beyond the median threshold, while energy intensity consistently exerts a strong negative effect across all models. Renewable electricity output remains positive and significant across all quantiles, confirming its role as a universal driver of sustainability. Renewable electricity consistently advances SDG outcomes, whereas broader renewable consumption becomes negative at higher SDG levels due to integration constraints. Energy intensity is uniformly detrimental, confirming efficiency as a universal accelerator. Per capita energy use remains positive but increasingly risky when fossil-dominated. These findings highlight the need for sequenced energy policies, including targeted subsidy reform, efficiency programs, renewable auctions, grid upgrades, and carbon pricing, to guide EAP economies toward a resilient, low-carbon development pathway. The study contributes by identifying distributional thresholds in energy–SDG relationships and proposing a sequencing-based policy framework for managing stage-dependent energy transitions.