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• Scandinavian countries are fostering a sustainable economy based on renewable energy. • The investments on renewable sources has positively affected the investments in this energy and GHG emissions. • A bidirectional causal relationship exists between renewable energy consumption and CO 2 emissions. • A causal relationship exists between renewable energy consumption and economic growth. Climate change presents the greatest challenge facing all countries of the world in the new millennium. Among others, objective 13 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aims at adopting urgent measures to contrast climate change and its consequences. Part of the decline in the global growth of emissions has been the increase in using renewable energies. In this context, the relationship among GDP, CO 2 emissions, and renewable energy use has been investigated in this study, starting from a systematic review that has noticed the presence of three clusters focused on: CO2 emissions, GDP, and energy consumption. Despite the current level of interest in examining the relationship among these variables, there have been few empirical studies. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper has been focused on the Scandinavian countries, where the use of renewable energies has steadily increased, developing novel panel analysis estimates. Using a dataset of these five economies over a 1990–2018 time period, several panel data tests have been carried out, in order to robustly assess the causality issue among renewable energies, CO 2 emissions, and GDP. The results of the empirical analysis imply that renewable energy consumption is a useful policy instrument to reduce CO 2 emissions without adversely affecting GDP growth. The main implications have been that the decrease of CO 2 emissions, by increasing renewable energy use, can guarantee high levels of energy efficiency and economic growth. These empirical findings help design innovative energy policy roadmaps and accelerate the ecological transition through the promotion of renewable energy and the reduction of GHG emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Impact-based water footprint of rolled steel production is first performed. • Fossil energy footprint and carbon footprint are evaluated by using LCA. • Maritime transport, iron power and direct emissions are major contributors. • Adjustment of industrial structure is essential for carbon mitigation of steel industry. The Iron and Steel Industry (ISI) is a difficult-to-mitigate sector that has considerable contributions to energy consumption, water pollution, and CO 2 emissions. Despite broad interest in energy consumption and CO 2 emissions generated by steel production, there are few impact-oriented Water Footprint (WF) assessments of steel production. This study evaluates the water, carbon and fossil energy footprints generated from rolled steel production on the basis of life cycle assessment. Key contributors attributing to those environmental impacts are also identified so as to explore their potential mitigation. Using the Monte Carlo model, an uncertainty analysis is conducted with the aim of providing reliable results for decision-making. Results show that the impact per ton China's rolled steel production has on global warming, human health, ecosystem quality, and resources is 4.40 × 103 kg CO 2 eq (GSD2 = 1.24), 4.15 × 10-3 Disability Adjusted of Life Years (DALY) (GSD2 = 1.31), 7.08 × 10-5 Species·yr (GSD2 = 2.04), and 4.39 × 104 MJ (GSD2 = 1.28), respectively. Global warming and freshwater ecotoxicity is the dominant contributor to the damage impact on human health and ecosystem quality, respectively. Results also show that the transport (freight ship) of raw materials and the production of iron powder are the two main contributors to the overall impact on the environment that rolled steel production has. Several policy recommendations are proposed in this paper, which focus on adjusting the steel industry's industrial structure, promoting the national-level carbon emissions trading in the ISI, promoting international cooperation, and improving public awareness of green and low-carbon development. Such policy recommendations provide decision-makers with valuable insights, which thus allow them to prepare the appropriate mitigation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Energy sustainability includes security, efficiency, cleanness, low carbon emissions. • Chinese energy sustainability has obvious spatial heterogeneity. • Cleanness and efficiency perform better than security, low carbon emissions in China. • Energy supply, consumption structure and pollution emissions are key impact factors. • Targeted measures are proposed to promote Chinese energy sustainability. Energy sustainability is one of the largest challenges for sustainable development. Energy sustainability in China varies by regions because of the differences in energy resources, technology and economic levels. Previous studies have assessed national energy sustainability, few to none have looked internally on a regional or provincial scale. This paper defined energy sustainability from the four dimensions of security, efficiency, cleanness and low carbon emissions, established an index system and evaluated the energy sustainability levels of 30 provinces in China by the Improved Entropy Weight-Cloud Model (IEW-CM). The results show that: (1) General energy sustainability in Chinese provinces is deficient, and energy cleanness and efficiency perform better than security and low carbon emissions. (2) Chinese energy sustainability has obvious spatial heterogeneity and within the same province, the level is unbalanced in four dimensions. The characteristics of energy sustainability exhibit significant differences in different regions. (3) Energy security and low carbon emissions play a crucial role in achieving energy sustainability. Natural gas deliverability, energy consumption elasticity coefficient, CO 2 emission per unit of energy and share of fossil energy consumption are the primary factors affecting energy sustainability differences among provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]