Join us for a hybrid event to launch a book with an inside account of the evolution of the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) from its earliest days.  
Zoom link

Link to the recording of the event

On 1 June 2022, 15:00 - 16:30 (CET) Stockholm Environmental Institute will host the launch of the book “Keeping the World’s Environment under Review: An Intellectual History of the Global Environment Outlook” written by Jan Bakkes, Marion Cheatle, Nora Mzavanadze, László Pintér and Ronald G. Witt. The event is organized by The Integrated Assessment Society (TIAS), with PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and Central European University (CEU).

How do we take stock of the state and direction of the world’s environment, and what can we learn from the experience? Among the myriad detailed narratives about the condition of the planet, the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) reports issued by the United Nations Environment Programme stand out as the most ambitious. For nearly three decades, the GEO project has not only delivered iconic global assessment reports, but through its multitude of contributors has inspired hundreds of similar processes worldwide from the regional to the local level.

This book provides an inside account of the evolution of GEO from its earliest days. Building on meticulous research, including interviews with former heads of the United Nations Environment Programme, diplomats, leading contributing scientists, and senior leaders of collaborating organizations, the story is told from the perspective of five GEO veterans who all played a pivotal role in shaping the periodic assessments. GEO’s history provides striking insights and will save valuable time to those who commission, design and conduct, as well as critique and improve, assessments of environmental development in the next decade.

Programme

Launch Agenda

15:00-15:40

• Welcome to the book launch (MC: Anita Lazurko)
• Welcome to SEI, introduction (Marie Jürisoo, Operations Director, SEI)
• Comments by the Guest of Honour (Edgar Gutierrez-Espeleta)
• Why this book and how was it written (Nora Mžavanadze)
• GEO’s eary years and scenarios (Jan Bakkes)
• GEO process and capacity building (László Pintér)
• In GEO’s footsteps: the ecosystem of sub-global assessments (Ronald G. Witt)
• Managing the GEO juggernaut (Marion Cheatle)
• Comments by PBL (Hans Mommaas)
• Comments by TIAS (Caroline van Bers)

Q&A

15:40-16:00

Reception

16:00-16:30