The energy market is characterized by significant imperfections. Negative external effects and other market imperfections have, among other things, a serious consequence - they send the wrong price signals and mask the real costs that arise in the process of energy production and consumption. As a result, there is a serious degradation of the environment at the local and global level. Negative effects at the global level, such as the depletion of non-renewable resources and changes in the global climate, represent the most serious challenges facing humanity today. Public sector responses to market imperfections, in the form of various measures and instruments, are well known in economic theory and have proved effective in practice in many circumstances. However, the fact that giving priority to economic and social goals in public policies can have and often results in deterioration of the quality of the environment is mainly ignored in the professional literature even today. In addition, the failure of energy regulations leads to environmental degradation. The situation is especially critical in many developing countries. In the race to achieve goals in the field of industry, agriculture or energy, there are major environmental problems that lead to environmental unsustainability as collateral damage. From an economic point of view, both the effectiveness and efficiency of energy policy are important, in terms of its potential to contribute to improvements in the field of environmental protection and energy efficiency. One of the best strategies is to introduce important aspects of the environment into the market sphere. In this way, the limitations of natural resources would be reflected in their prices. Abolishing the practice of large subsidies and underestimation of fossil fuel prices is certainly a step in the right direction.

This research explores development conflicts within Kopaonik National Park (NP) arising from the prioritization of winter tourism, particularly skiing activities and the associated infrastructure. This emphasis has led to the marginalization of the unique natural heritage that warranted the park’s establishment in 1981, presenting an unusual case of exploiting and jeopardizing significant Balkan natural heritage. Tourist facilities situated in protection zones II and III interface with natural reserves in protection zone I, escalating conflicts and spatial impacts and raising concerns about the preservation of reserves and the park’s original purpose. Kopaonik Mountain, inherently suited for winter tourism, faces the challenge of accommodating a ski center within its exceptional natural heritage. Legal and planning activities support winter tourism without adequately defining its compatibility with the park’s natural heritage. Through an in-depth analysis of legal documents, plans, projects, and studies, this paper highlights conflicts, especially with natural heritage, expressing concerns for the park’s future. The Spatial Plan of the Special Purpose Area of National Park Kopaonik, as a highly important strategic document, leans toward winter activities, prompting a critical review. The paper concludes with suggestions to alleviate winter tourism’s negative impacts and proposes sustainable practices within the realm of protected natural heritage and other human activities.

In the major theories of economic development, the spatial aspect has often been neglected. Within the evolution of regional development theories, not only is there a shift in focus from exogenous to endogenous factors, but also an increasing importance of human capital in the development process. Agglomeration economies are ultimately driven by savings in transport costs, related not only to the exchange of goods and services, but also to people and ideas. Large cities play crucial role in knowledge spillover because the interaction of educated and creative people stimulates innovation. Also, it is obvious that there is a very pronounced feedback principle between urban growth and the knowledge spillover. Contemporary urbanization trends are perfectly matched with the technological advances of the new age which led to sharp decrease of costs of communication and transfer of information. These processes (that trigger pronounced agglomeration diseconomies, such as pollution, rising cost of living and congestion), accompanied by the demographic explosion that is especially evident in developing countries, bring into focus the problems of urban development.

Most theoretical and empirical research on the subject of urban transport energy consumption has addressed the role of urban form and urban spatial structure (primarily population density and degree of centralisation), city size (population and/or area), the level of economic development, transport patterns, and transportation infrastructure. Our analysis encompasses a wide range of socio-economic, spatial, transport and infrastructure indicators, as well as energy efficiency and energy consumption indicators in a sample of 35 world cities, covering the period from 1960 to 2005. Comparative analysis indicates there are significant differences regarding the determinants of urban transport energy consumption, especially between the US and Australian automobile-dependent cities, on the one hand, and the wealthy Asian metropolises, on the other. Despite some recent positive trends (a decline in automobile vehiclekilometres and reduction in urban transport energy consumption), a large number of cities in the developed world still rely predominantly on cars, while sustainable modes of urban transport play an almost negligible role. Due to trends of urbanization, demographic growth and a rise in living standards, the main focus of attention has shifted to metropolises in developing countries. In the long run, the urban form itself is particularly significant, not only because it critically influences transport demand, but also because of its inertness.

National forest inventories (NFIs) in Serbia have been carried out very rarely (every 20 years), while the last two official estimates of forest areas (for 2011 and 2014) are very imprecise, because they are based on the cadastral data (and Serbia is well known for the lack of cadastre updating). Although forest conservation policymakers in Serbia still have limited financial, human, and political resources, over the past two decades, publicly available, remotely sensed satellite data on deforestation and degradation have dramatically reduced evaluation costs. Since municipalities in Southern Serbia experienced a 15% loss of forest area in the 2006–2014 period, as the obvious result of forceful, rapid process of illegal logging, this study evaluates the possible use of two remote sensing techniques: normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and CORINE land cover (CLC) databases for preventing illegal logging in Serbia. It clearly shows that NDVI is very promising for Serbia and also for other post-socialist countries that very rarely carry out national forest inventories (NFIs), and where unrecorded, illegal logging can exceed the legal harvest by a factor of 10.

This study examines the prospects for a just and sustainable transition of the public transport system in Kragujevac, a mid-sized Serbian city facing increasing environmental, social, and mobility challenges. Positioned within the broader context of the Western Balkans’ alignment with the European Green Deal and Serbia’s decarbonisation commitments, the paper investigates how user perceptions, service satisfaction, and public acceptance influence the feasibility of introducing electric buses as a low-carbon mobility solution. Building on international and regional literature on just green transition and sustainable urban mobility, the study analyses primary survey data to evaluate users’ readiness for cleaner transport technologies and to identify service quality gaps that may hinder or facilitate this transition. The findings demonstrate that public acceptance of electric buses is high, but that support for greener mobility is conditional on improvements in service frequency, reliability, comfort, and fare policy. These results underscore the need for an integrated transition strategy that combines technological innovation with social equity and service quality enhancements. The paper concludes by outlining theoretical contributions to just transition studies in mid-sized and post-socialist urban contexts, as well as practical implications for local policymakers, transport operators, and city planners. Limitations and directions for future research in the Western Balkan region are also discussed.