The Onus on Coal Consumption and the ‘Beautiful China Initiative’: Economic and Policy Implications

China’s need for rapid economic growth and its hunger for natural resources significantly challenge its economic and policy vision of sustainability, social stability and economic development. The ‘Beautiful China Initiative’ plans to put China on the path of sustainable development in line with the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development GoaSls. The Chinese authorities are expected to reconsider traditional economic policy models to integrate environmental protection while ensuring that their economy proliferates. The shift from a traditional and heavy coal-dependent economy towards greener energy and a sustainable economic model brings additional challenges to China due to its historical dependence on coal as its energy engine. This research paper examines causality patterns between economic growth and fossil fuels energy consumption by analysing coal consumption and carbon dioxide emissions policies using Pesaran’s autoregressive distributed lag model. The research findings offer insights into China’s challenges to transition towards a more sustainable economic model, making the country’s ‘Beautiful China Initiative’ quite complex as it needs to navigate through high levels of environment-friendly economic growth whilst trying to avoid the middle-income trap.