Green development assessment for countries along the belt and road.

The construction of the green Belt and Road is an important aspect for the achievement of a green transition of the regional economy and an important aspect of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Chinese government has attached great importance to the green BRI, and it has successively issued the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Green BRI and the Belt and Road Ecological and Environmental Cooperation Plan, which embodies China's firm determination and practical action to promote the green BRI. In this paper, an index system and multi-hierarchy linear summation method is proposed to evaluate the level of green development in 2015 for 49 countries along the Belt and Road. The results showed that the green development levels displayed spatial differences, varying from high to low in an easterly direction from the western region. The spatial differentiation was characterized by strong global spatial dependences and a ladder-like distribution that descends from west to east, with a centralized distribution of high-high zones and low-low zones and a dispersed distribution of low-high zones. This study also provides policy recommendations for Belt and Road countries.