The expansion of road networks, taken place during the last decades, was driven by technological progress and economic growth. The most innovative products of this trend—modern motorways and international road corridors—provide an excellent level of service, traffic safety and necessary information to travelers. However, despite this undeniable progress, major impediments and respective challenges to road authorities and operators still remain. The present paper analytically presents the main current challenges in the road engineering field, namely: a) financing new projects, b) alternative energy resources, especially renewable energy, c) serviceability, including maintenance of road infrastructure, traffic congestion and quality of the network, d) climate change hazards due to greenhouse gas emissions increase, e) environmental impacts, f) safety on roads, streets and motorways, and g) economy and cost-effectiveness. In each country and over each network, challenges and concerns may vary, but, in most cases, competent authorities, engaged in road development policies, have to deal with most of these issues. The optimization of the means to achieve the best results seems to be an enduring stake. In the present paper, the origin and the main features of these challenges are outlined as well as their tendency to get amplified or diminished under the actual evolving economic conditions worldwide, where growth alternates with crisis and social hardship. Moreover, responses, meant to provide solutions to the said challenges, are suggested, including research findings of Aristotle University and innovative technological achievements, to drive the transition to a more sustainable future.

Distributed biomass energy technology has strong adaptability to the types of raw materials, flexible project scale, can meet the needs of special users, better economy in small scale, easier commercial development, in line with the characteristics of biomass resources and China’s national conditions. The distributed utilization of biomass energy mainly includes biomass briquette fuel and biogas. The key technologies include biomass briquette fuel processing and combustion, large and medium-sized biogas engineering technology, biomass gasification pyrolysis and gas utilization. At present, China’s distributed biomass energy technology is mainly in the stage of technological improvement and application demonstration. It is expected that by 2030, most of the key technologies will be basically mature and have the conditions for industrialization. The main development direction of China’s distributed biomass energy industry is the replacement of traditional coal-fired gas, urban/rural clean living energy supply, and rural ecological environmental protection. The pollution caused by burning coal/fuel oil, and at the same time centering on the national new urbanization strategy, provide sustainable clean energy for the construction of new rural areas, and improve the level of rural ecological and environmental protection. At present, the main bottleneck restricting the development of distributed biomass energy industry is economy and reliability. The state should increase investment in technological innovation and policy support, convert the environmental and social benefits of biomass energy into cost benefits, and promote biomass energy. The development of the industry can be distributed and utilized.

Influenced by global financial crisis in 2008, many countries around the world have realized the significance of sustainable development. And green development, as the most important pathway to sustainability, has been implemented by various countries. In this context, green development has drawn great attention from academic researchers both at home and abroad in recent years and has become an interdisciplinary-oriented research direction. As an applied basic research field for exploring the structural change of resources and environment as well as regional sustainable development, geography plays an essential role in the research of green development. Based on an intensive literature review, this article firstly summarized the connotation and analytical framework of green development. Secondly, it systematically outlined the progress of green development research from the perspective of geography and thus extracted seven themes, that is, the influencing factors of green development, assessment methods, spatial and temporal characteristics of green development, green development and industrial transformation, green transformation of resource-based cities, the effect of green development, and green development institutions and recommendations. Comments were made on the existing studies including their shortcomings. Finally, future research emphases were discussed, aiming to provide references for further study on green development from the perspective of geography in China.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) wants to become a key regional actor in the Arctic. PRC's underlying priority in the region is gaining access to commercial opportunities from trade and natural resources. To this end, PRC is building its domestic capacities for research and commercial development in the Arctic, increasing its involvement in multilateral forums on Arctic governance and deepening ties to Arctic nations, especially Russia.

Attitudes towards PRC among Arctic nations are diverging, but Beijing generally faces high levels of skepticism and opposition to its Arctic involvement, explicitly grounded in perceptions of PRC as a state undermining the rules-based international order and potential military build-up in the high north.

The analytical framework in this article builds on an outline authored by Exner-Pirot in 2012 (Exner-Pirot, 2012) to detail the current schools of thought within Arctic governance, and builds on it by including more recent developments in Arctic governance, incorporating the updated Arctic policies of most Arctic countries and connecting it to PRC.

This article contends that Beijing wants to change the status quo of Arctic governance and shift it towards a more accommodating approach to non-Arctic states. This article finds, based on the stated Arctic strategies of the eight Arctic states and PRC, that there are different views on Arctic governance where Arctic countries for the most part indicate an openness to a Chinese entry into the Arctic, albeit in diverging ways. This creates a complex governance scenario for PRC to navigate as it seeks to become a key Arctic player

The project finance scenario has changed significantly around the world after the 2008 financial crisis and following the subsequent Basel III recommendations. Project finance loans from commercial banks and financial institutions have largely dried up, leaving it mostly to the export credit agencies and the bilateral and multilateral development banks to provide the institutional credit. Unfortunately, those sources are not enough, given the huge needs for construction of new infrastructure and renovation of the old ones across Asia, Africa and Latin America. The need for capital markets, through market listed financial products across asset class, unlocking a large part of domestic and corporate savings, has never been felt as strongly before. This article seeks to analyze the development story of various Asian capital markets and examine financial products, which have succeeded in their short history in receiving investor interest. The article also delves into the challenges to market development, policy imperatives and the issues relating to market liquidity and credit rating, which are the most significant influencers for public market float and investor interest.

Developing Asia’s infrastructure gap results from both inadequate public resources and a lack of effective channels to mobilize private resources toward desired outcomes. The public-private partnership (PPP) mechanism has evolved to fill the infrastructure gap. However, PPP projects are often at risk of becoming distressed, or worst, being terminated because of the long-term nature of contracts and the many different stakeholders involved. This paper applies survival-time hazard analysis to estimate how project-related, macroeconomic, and institutional factors affect the hazard rate of the projects. Empirical results show that government’s provision of guarantees, involvement of multilateral development banks, and existence of a dedicated PPP unit are important for a project’s success. Privately initiated proposals should be regulated and undergo competitive bidding to reduce the hazard rate of the project and the corresponding burden to the government. Economic growth leads to successful project outcomes. Improved legal and institutional environment can ensure PPP success.