GEO is a UNEP managed project with two main objectives (1) a global environment assessment process that is cross-sectoral and participatory, incorporating regional views and perceptions and building consensus on priority issues and actions through dialogue among policy-makers and scientists at regional and global levels; and (2) a biennial environment assessment report series that reviews the state of the world’s environment through identifying major environment concerns, trends, and emerging issues—together with their causes, impacts, and societal responses—to provide guidance for international environmental policy formulation, action planning, and resource allocation.
GEO-1 is the first report from the project (1997), focusing on the worldwide environmental assessment process. The second GEO report, (GEO-2) was published in September 1999. It incorporates regional views and perceptions and aims at building consensus on priority issues and actions. Input was solicited from 20 collaborating centres, from United Nations organisations and through regional policy consultations. It describes the environmental status and trends in seven regions; it summarises developments over time in regional policy responses; the report concludes with an exploration, based on model analysis, of what we might expect in the future for a selected number of environmental issues if no major policy reforms are initiated.
The report offers synthesis of environmental status, trends and issues at both the global and regional levels. Arranged as four chapters: (1) global environmental outlook process; (2) regional perspectives; (3) policy responses and directions (subdivided by regions); (4) looking to the future (model based approach covering issues of population, climate change, acidification, land use and capacity, human health. Report Includes a large number of topical/regional maps, statistics and graphs (downloadable from the GRID Norway site).