<p>This study examines the differential effects of technological innovation, renewable energy consumption and bio-capacity protection on carbon emission in Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Using panel series data from 2000 to 2022, the study employed dynamic common correlated effects, cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lag, fully modified ordinary least squares and dynamic ordinary leas squares to establish the differential effects across the six countries. The results show varied effects and implications on carbon emission in all the Gulf Cooperation Council, with Bahrain exhibiting significant difference over the other countries. Technological innovation and bio-capacity protection were found to have significant effect on CO₂ emission in countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait while renewable energy showed negative distributional effect on CO₂ emissions in all countries except Bahrain, with larger effect in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The case of Bahrain could be attributable to lesser policy attention and investments into renewable energy development, implying its inability to harness the full benefits of renewable energy in its CO₂ emissions strategy. The differentiated effects could result in policy priorities divergence and collaborative investments, underscoring the paradox of collective achievement of the sustainable development goals in the Gulf Cooperation Council. These findings highlight the need for collaborative implementation of the council’s carbon policy frameworks and targeted support policies for Bahrain and Oman, which showed significant variations in their results. For collaboration on the achievement of the sustainable development goals, regional policies on clean energy should prioritize Bahrain. This will help the region deliver collective sustainable development goals outcomes by the year 2030.</p> Graphical abstract <p></p>