Global Environment Outlook (GEO6) Summary for Policymakers Presentations in Brussels

The Global Environment Outlook is often referred to as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)’s flagship environmental assessment report. The GEO6 Summary for Policymakers was released earlier this year at the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi (March 2019) and is a spin-off version of the Global Environmental Outlook which is published every five years and aims to give an independent assessment of the current state of the environment. The summary for policymakers is a negotiated version of the GEO6 Report, specifically developed for policymakers, taking into account their specific needs and requirements. It aims at providing them with the necessary information to make science-based decisions also taking into consideration the critical state of our environment.

The Report which was produced by 250 scientists and experts from more than 70 countries warns that damage to the planet is so dire that people’s health will be increasingly threatened unless urgent action is taken.  According to GEO6 unsustainable human activities globally have degraded the Earth’s ecosystems, endangering the ecological foundations of society. Based on their assessment the authors call for urgent action at an unprecedented scale to arrest and reserve this situation and propose actions needed.

Mid-October 2019, Matthew Billot, Senior Coordination Officer at the UN Environment Programme Europe Office, and involved in the GEO production process, seized the opportunity to present the findings of the GEO6 Summary for Policymakers to key EU stakeholders in Brussels. He gave presentations at three events held at the European Parliament, the UN House and at the Directorate-General for Environment (DG ENV).

In his presentations to the EU policymakers and stakeholders, Matthew Billot gave an overview of the drivers of environmental change, such as demographic growth and urbanization. This was followed by a more in-depth analysis of the state of the environment, focusing respectively on-air, biodiversity, ocean and coasts, land and soil, freshwater and cross-cutting issues. He further zoomed in on the effectiveness of environmental policies and on how to change the path we are on. 

 At the European Parliament, Mr Billott shared the main outcomes in the context of a panel discussion about the protection of our natural capital, as part of the GLOBE EU Conference on sustainability in the EU (15 October) attended by over 100 representatives from EU and international institutions, private sector, civil society, think tanks, and academics. He spoke alongside Hans Bruyninckx from the European Environment, Luc Bas from IUCN, and Jérôme Charton from Ecolab.

At the conference, Mr Billot emphasized the issue of the effectiveness of environmental policies, by defining the characteristics for the design of an adequate policy, as well as the means needed to monitor its implementation and its evaluation. He underlined that environmental policies are more effective when they are part of other policies like economic and social policies and he stressed that policies that address systems rather than issues are more transformative. He pointed out the urgent need to adopt a systems approach if we want to achieve multilateral environmental agreements such as the Paris Agreement and the Aichi Targets, as we are far behind on achieving the environmental dimension of the Agenda for Sustainable Development by 2030. 

In reaction to a remark from the audience who questioned whether we might not have the right tools for designing the right policies, Matthew Billot explained that when studying case studies for GEO 6, the team did not always have the indicators that they wanted to assess the policies against. Like with many multilateral environmental agreements and conventions, the monitoring and evaluation components were not really thought through in all studied policies. The goals are often qualitative and not easy to pin down. Policies often suffer from that same line of thinking on end results. The policy design also depends a lot on who has designed them and through which lens they have looked at the problem that they address, he explained. For policies to be effective, you furthermore need enabling policies. But policy frameworks are different in many parts of the world and there is a cultural difference in how you apply them. Some countries favor voluntary approaches, whereas others prefer tough regulation with fines for instance. So these are the types of differences and challenges faced when studying the various policies across the world he pointed out. 

[Insert picture] During the GEO6 Summary for Policymakers presentation which took place at the UN House, Matthew Billot had the chance to engage in a Q&A with members of the academic and research Institutes, as well as representatives of the youth and NGOs. The participants were very eager to learn more about how civil society could influence Governments to step up their targets and ambitions and held them accountable for their actions, or lack thereof. One of the participants, after praising UNEP’s involvement and commitment to the topic, suggested the need for the transition from the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to a system of Internationally Agreed Commitments, which would allow for a more rigorous and harmonized application of climate policies around the World. Welcoming the achievements and the outcomes of the Climate Action Summit, the audience expressed high hopes for the next COPs, which will be taking place in December of this year in Madrid and in Glasgow next November, as well as for the New European Green Deal. 

[Insert picture] Finally, Matthew had the opportunity to bring the main GEO6 findings to European Commission officials at a lunchtime briefing of the Directorate-General for Environment (DG ENVI), which also saw the participation of members from the Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA), Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) and European External Action Service (EEAS). The audience shared the observations on the need for urgent action at an unprecedented scale to stay below the 2C temperature increase by 2050. In this regard, various officials mentioned the importance of multilateralism and cooperation, they also reiterated the European will to lead by example in the fight against climate change. The members of the different DGs confirmed their support for the priorities established by the incoming Commission and stated that the preparation works for the New European Green Deal have already started in order to help the Commission deliver its ambitious plan 100 days after the beginning of its mandate. 

During the interactive session, words of praise were expressed for the fruitful collaboration between the European Commission and the United Nations Environment Programme, which will certainly need to continue and intensify to appropriately face the environmental challenges ahead.