Global Environment Outlook (GEO)

Reviewing the state of the global environment and assessing environmental trends is the main focus of UNEP/DEWA work. The realization of this mandate came to fruition with the launching of the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) Project in 1995, and which is evolving towards a self-standing, long-term programme. GEO outputs are the final product of an extensive cross-sectoral and multi-stakeholder global process that is future-oriented and policy-based in approach. They provide a comprehensive review of the planet's state of the environment, identify major concerns, trends and emerging issues together with their causes and their social and economic impacts.

Global Environment Outlook (GEO) is the first foremost a participatory process for environmental assessment that aims at facilitating the interaction between science on the one hand and policy and decision-making on the other

GEO is mandated by UNEP’s Governing Council and is UNEP’s flagship report on the state and trends of the global environment. The first volume in the series, GEO-1 was launched in 1997, the second (GEO-2000) in 2000 and the third (GEO-3) in 2002, prior to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. The GEO reports contain a global and regional assessment of key environmental issues and associated policy responses as well as a forward looking analysis of environmental challenges.

UNEP is holding a regional framework under the design of GEO-4, which will be published in 2007. It will build upon the experiences gained and lessons learned in providing the previous three comprehensive GEO reports.