The Global Environment Outlook: A Future We Choose

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 USD 20 trillion US dollars per year by 2070 and continue growing, according to the seventh edition of the Global Environment Outlook, titled A Future We Choose. The report was published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in December 2025, and is the product of 287 multi-disciplinary scientists from 82 countries.
One key enabling factor of this approach is moving away from GDP to indicators that also track human and natural capital – incentivising economies to move towards circularity, decarbonisation of the energy system, sustainable agriculture, ecosystem restoration and more. 

Two pathways of transformation

The report presents two transformation pathways, looking at behavioural changes to place less emphasis on material consumption, and changes in which the world relies primarily on technological development and efficiency gains. 

The transformation pathways predict that the global macroeconomic benefits will start to appear in 2050, grow to USD 20 trillion per year by 2070 and boom thereafter to USD 100 trillion per year. The pathways project reduced exposure to climate risks, reduced biodiversity loss by 2030 and an increase in natural lands.

Changes across five key areas

Following the transformation pathways would require sweeping changes across five key areas. The report outlines recommended measures for each area, including: economy and finance, materials and waste, energy, food systems and environment.

The report calls for a parallel co-development and co-implementation of such solutions. Considering diverse knowledge systems, especially Indigenous Knowledge and Local Knowledge, is crucial to just transitions that address both environmental sustainability and human well-being. 

Growing degradation

Drawing on multiple sources, the report also lays out in detail the current and future consequences of business-as-usual development models.

Greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 1.5 per cent each year since 1990, reaching a new high in 2024 – raising global temperatures and intensifying climate impacts. The cost of extreme weather events attributed to climate change over the last 20 years is estimated at USD 143 billion annually. 

Between 20 and 40 per cent of land area world-wide is estimated to be degraded, affecting over three billion people, while one million of an estimated eight million species are threatened with extinction.

Nine million deaths are attributable annually to some form of pollution. The economic cost of health damages from air pollution alone was about USD 8.1 trillion in 2019 – or around 6.1 per cent of global GDP.

Inaction leads to dramatic consequences

The state of the environment will dramatically worsen if the world continues to power economies under a business-as-usual pathway. Without action, global mean temperature rise is likely to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in the early 2030s, exceed 2.0°C above these levels by the 2040s and then keep climbing. On this path, climate change would cut 4 per cent off annual global GDP by 2050 and 20 per cent by the end of the century.

Land degradation is expected to continue at current rates, with the world losing fertile and productive land the size of Colombia or Ethiopia annually – at a time when climate change could reduce per-person food availability by 3.4 per cent by 2050.

The 8,000 million tonnes of plastic waste polluting the planet will continue to accumulate – driving up the estimated health-related economic losses of USD 1.5 trillion attributable annually to exposure to toxic chemicals in plastics.

(UNEP/ile)

Read more and download the report on the UNEP website