The Global Environment Outlook, Seventh Edition: A Future We Choose, the product of 287 multi-disciplinary scientists from 82 countries, is the most comprehensive scientific assessment of the global environment ever carried out.
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.
The translated versions of the GEO‑7 Executive Summary were made possible through the generous contributions of the Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) (Spanish version), the Korea Environment Institute (KEI) (Korean version), Fuzhou University (Chinese version) and the German Translation Section of the United Nations in New York (German version).
GEO-7 is the most comprehensive scientific assessment of the global environment to this day. It brings together the voices of 287 experts from 82 countries, with contributions from over 800 reviewers worldwide. Authors met in Bangkok, Vienna, and Nairobi to prepare the groundbreaking assessment that compares the current trajectory of the global environment – one trending towards…
Nairobi, 9 December 2025 – The most comprehensive assessment of the global environment ever undertaken has found that investing in a stable climate, healthy nature and land, and a pollution-free planet can deliver trillions in additional global GDP, avoid millions of deaths and lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and hunger.
The work of nearly 300 multidisciplinary scientists, this landmark report offers an in-depth look at the state of the global environment, exploring everything from the health of coral reefs to the status of the ozone layer. Many of its findings are concerning. But GEO-7 reports that if humanity acts quickly, it can still undo decades of environmental damage and forge a more…
