Global Environment Outlook 7

What’s new in this year’s report?

The report finds that investing in a stable climate, healthy nature and land, and a pollution-free planet can deliver trillions of dollars each year in additional global GDP, avoid millions of deaths, and lift hundreds of millions of people out of hunger and poverty in the coming decades.

Following current development pathways will bring catastrophic climate change, devastation to nature and biodiversity, debilitating land degradation and desertification, and lingering deadly pollution – all at a huge cost to people, planet and economies.

Instead, the world can follow another, better path laid out in the report. This involves whole-of-society and whole-of-government approaches to transform the systems of economy and finance, materials and waste, energy, food and the environment – all backed by behavioural, social and cultural shifts that include respect for Indigenous Knowledge and Local Knowledge.

While there are up-front costs, the economic cost of inaction is much higher and the long-term return on investment of transformation is clear: the global macroeconomic benefits start to appear around 2050, grow to US$20 trillion per year by 2070 and rise thereafter.

The report calls on all actors to acknowledge the urgency of the global environmental crises, build on progress made in recent decades, and collaborate in the co-design and implementation of integrated policies, strategies and actions to deliver a better future for all.