The third UNEP Global Environment Outlook report (GEO-3) provides global and regional perspectives on the past, present and future environment, linked together with telling examples from within various regions to form a comprehensive and integrated assessment. Chapter Four (which can be downloaded from this site in a 2MB zipped PDF format rather than from the UN's slow server) presents four possible scenarios for the way our world develops from this time forward. Which one appeals to you?

• Most of the world adopts the values and expectations prevailing in today’s industrialized countries.
• The wealth of nations and the optimal play of market forces dominate social and political agendas.
• Trust is placed in further globalization and liberalization to enhance corporate wealth, create new enterprises and livelihoods, and so help people and communities to afford to insure against, or pay to fix, social and environmental problems.
• Ethical investors, together with citizen and consumer groups, try to exercise growing corrective influence but are undermined by economic imperatives.
• The powers of state officials, planners and lawmakers to regulate society, economy and the environment continue to be overwhelmed by expanding demands.

• Decisive initiatives are taken by governments in an attempt to reach specific social and environmental goals.
• A coordinated pro-environment and anti-poverty drive balances the momentum for economic development at any cost.
• Environmental and social costs and gains are factored into policy measures, regulatory frameworks and planning processes.
• All these are reinforced by fiscal levers or incentives such as carbon taxes and tax breaks.
• International ‘soft law’ treaties and binding instruments affecting environment and development are integrated into unified blueprints and their status in law is upgraded, though fresh provision is made for open consultation processes to allow for regional and local variants.

• This scenario assumes a world of striking disparities where inequality and conflict prevail.
• Socio-economic and environmental stresses give rise to waves of protest and counteraction.
• As such troubles become increasingly prevalent, the more powerful and wealthy groups focus on self-protection, creating enclaves akin to the present day ‘gated communities’.
• Such islands of advantage provide a degree of enhanced security and economic benefits for dependent communities in their immediate surroundings but they exclude the disadvantaged mass of outsiders.
• Welfare and regulatory services fall into disuse but market forces continue to operate outside the walls.

• A new environment and development paradigm emerges in response to the challenge of sustainability, supported by new, more equitable values and institutions.
• A more visionary state of affairs prevails, where radical shifts in the way people interact with one another and with the world around them stimulate and support sustainable policy measures and accountable corporate behavior.
• There is much fuller collaboration between governments, citizens and other stakeholder groups in decision-making on issues of close common concern.
• A consensus is reached on what needs to be done to satisfy basic needs and realize personal goals without beggaring others or spoiling the outlook for posterity.

So again, which one appeals to you? Click on the name of the scenario of your choice and find out what your world will be like in 2032. Have a nice world.

• Markets First
• Policy First
• Security First
• Sustainability First

If you want all the details, download Chapter 4 (2,115,077 bytes) of the Global Environment Outlook report. Most of the information on this page, and the four linked just above, comes from this very interesting report which additionally contains many interesting maps and charts. You will need Abobe Acrobat to read the PDF file after you unzip it.

1. This famous saying by the Buddha has been translated many times:

In this world hatred is never appeased by hatred;
hatred is always appeased by love. This is an ancient law.

Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world.
By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal.

Hostilities aren't stilled through hostility, regardless.
Hostilities are stilled through non-hostility: this, an unending truth.

(It is found both at Dhammapada 1.5 and MN 128)

Maps and Charts from GEO-3 Chapter 4

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Leigh Brasington / / Revised 09 Mar 14