The latest report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), from the most comprehensive assessment ever taken, 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 Global Environment Outlook, Seventh Edition: A Future We Choose (GEO-7) was released during the seventh session of the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi, and is the product of 287 multi-disciplinary scientists from 82 countries.
The report shows that climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, desertification, and pollution and waste have taken a heavy toll on the planet, people, and economies, already costing trillions of dollars each year.
Inger Andersen, UNEP Executive Director, said that the lays out a simple choice for humanity: continue down the road to a future devastated by climate change, dwindling nature, degraded land, and polluted air, or change direction to secure a healthy planet, healthy people, and healthy economies.
“This is no choice at all,” she said.
The report shows that whole-of-society and whole-of-government approaches to transform the systems of economy and finance, materials and waste, energy, food, and the environment would deliver global macroeconomic benefits that could reach US$20 trillion per year by 2070 and continue growing.
However, it offers two transformation pathways, which are looking at behavioral changes to place less emphasis on material consumption, and changes in which the world relies primarily on technological development and efficiency gains
These pathways predict that the global macroeconomic benefits will start to appear in 2050, grow to US$20 trillion per year by 2070, and boom thereafter to US$100 trillion per year. The pathways project reduced exposure to climate risks, reduced biodiversity loss by 2030, and increased in natural lands.
Moreover, nine million premature deaths can be avoided by 2050 through measures such as cutting air pollution. By 2050, almost 200 million people could be lifted out of undernourishment and over 100 million people out of extreme poverty.
To achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and ensure adequate funding for conserving and restoring biodiversity, an annual investment of about US$8 trillion is needed until 2050. However, the cost of inaction is far higher.
Employing the pathways would require sweeping changes in the Economy and finance to include comprehensive, inclusive wealth metrics, implementing circular product design to improve traceability, decarbonizing energy supply, strengthening sustainable food systems, besides accelerating conservation and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems.
Calling for a parallel co-development and co-implementation of such solutions, the report further emphasizes consideration of diverse knowledge systems, especially Indigenous Knowledge and Local Knowledge, which are crucial to just transitions that address both environmental sustainability and human well-being.
Moreover, business-as-usual development is pushing the planet to the brink. Global emissions hit record highs in 2024, driving extreme weather, land degradation, and threatening one million species.
Pollution alone kills nine million people annually and costs trillions in economic damage. Without urgent action, temperatures could soar past 2°C by the 2040s, global GDP could drop 20% by century’s end, and food and land resources will continue to vanish.
The GEO-7 report shows that the path forward demands both ambition and accountability, because the cost of inaction is far greater than the investments needed to secure a future we truly choose.
