GEO MATTERS August 2017

The sixth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-6), of which we are co-chairs, is the first to appear after the adoption by the global community of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As economic and social, rather than natural, scientists, we feel it important that this Global Environment Outlook should fully incorporate the economic and social dimensions that run through the 2030 Agenda, thereby producing a truly holistic analysis of the environmental challenges that we face, and aligning the Global Environment Outlook with the recently-agreed global policy targets in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. How to achieve this was the subject of considerable discussion at the second authors’ meeting of the Global Environment Outlook in Bangkok, Thailand (22-26 May 2017).