GEO MATTERS February 2017

The Global Environment Outlook (GEO) is the United Nations Environment flagship assessment that draws on the full breadth of available scientific knowledge in order to identify and explain the environmental challenges facing humanity, how we are acting to address these challenges and what the possibilities are for a more sustainable future. Five editions of the Global Environment Outlook have been produced since 1997, each showing the progress, or lack thereof, made on protecting and restoring the global environment. Now, at a critical time for environmental protection, it is important to revisit our development approaches to make them consistent with protecting and restoring our environment while taking equity issues into account. With this in mind, and with several global environmental agreements having recently been reached, the sixth Global Environment Outlook aims to monitor the implementation of the environmental dimension of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).