United Nations Environment Programme. (2025). Global Environment Outlook 7: A future we choose. United Nations Environment Programme. https://www.unep.org/geo/global-environment-outlook-7

What is the real price tag of delaying climate and nature action by another year—or another decade? 

The United Nations Environment Programme’s Global Environemnt Outlook 7: A future we choose (GEO-7) explores this question. Launched on December 9, 2025, at the seventh UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-7) in Nairobi, Kenya, GEO-7 is the most comprehensive scientific assessment of the global environment to date. Produced by 287 multidisciplinary scientists from 82 countries and reviewed by more than 800 experts and 56 review editors worldwide, the report reflects an effort of remarkable scale, ensuring scientific credibility and global representation.  

The price tag – measured in human and economic costs – of failing to achieve transformative change is steep. GEO-7 finds that continued environmental degradation will drive growing economic losses and could cost tens of millions of lives over the coming decades. Pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation are already leading to devastating environmental, economic, and human impacts. The outlook emphasizes that these crises are deeply interconnected and that addressing them will require integrated, system-wide solutions across regions and within national governments and societies.  

Crucially, GEO-7 underscores that this future is not inevitable. The report maps out two “Transformation Pathway” scenarios – alternative ways that societies might achieve global environmental goals while supporting economic prosperity. The technology-focused transformation focuses on technological development and efficiency gains. The behavior-focused transformation illuminates how shifts in values and material consumption patterns could drive change. Together, these pathways explore how structural change in energy, food systems, land use, materials and waste, and finance could alter long-term outcomes. 

Taylor Hanna, Associate Director of Development Analysis at the Pardee Institute, and Jonathan Moyer, Director of the Pardee Institute, served as lead authors on Chapters 10 and 11. These chapters map the global implications of the continuation of current trends (Chapter 10) and the pursuit of transformation pathways (Chapter 11). They draw on the Pardee Institute’s International Futures (IFs) model, used alongside other global environmental and economic models, to explore long-term trajectories for economic, agricultural, and energy indicators.  

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for global partnerships, recognizing that ending poverty is linked to progress in education, energy, and health. The IFs model suggests that under current trends, the world will achieve only modest well-being improvements and miss many SDG targets. Many will still lack basic needs, and disparities between high-income countries and others persist. This highlights an opportunity for countries to align strategies with sustainability and improve well-being. Scenario analysis shows where integrated policies can close gaps and foster inclusive progress. 

By contrast, the Transformation Pathways mapped out in GEO-7 suggest meaningful progress is possible –not only toward global climate goals and stronger economic growth, but also toward improved human well-being worldwide. In the modeling, these pathways lift more than 100 million people out of extreme poverty, 200 million out of hunger, and prevent 9 million premature deaths relative to Current Trends. 

This is the third GEO assessment to which the Pardee Institute and the IFs model have contributed, following earlier involvement in GEO-4 and GEO-6. By contributing to successive GEO assessments, the Pardee Institute continues to provide systems-based long-term analysis as part of a wider international effort to link environmental science with policy decisions. You can access the full GEO-7 report here and view background information, including press releases and the report timeline.  

Unlocking the Potential of AfCFTA for Africa’s Young Population. (2025, May). Unicef.org. https://www.unicef.org/innocenti/reports/unlocking-potential-afcfta-africas-young-population

‌UNICEF and the Pardee Institute recently launched a collaborative report on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and its implications for Africa’s young population, led by Pardee researchers, including Deva Sahadevan, Taylor Hanna, and Jonathan Moyer.

Using our International Futures (IFs) model, the report compares three paths: no AfCFTA, AfCFTA as agreed, and AfCFTA plus strategic investments in education, welfare transfers, and research & development, all the way to 2063. The report recommends that countries put children at the center by investing AfCFTA revenue in education, health, nutrition, and green jobs, while building strong social safety nets. They also need to manage risks like job shifts, environmental impacts, and child protection issues.

Abidoye, B., Banda, A., Baumwoll, J., Carman, R., Moz-Christofoletti, M., Orlic, E., Patterson, L. (2024). Advancing the SDG Push with equitable low-carbon pathways. UNDP. https://www.undp.org/publications/advancing-sdg-push-equitable-low-carbon-pathways

The ‘SDG Push x NDC 3.0’ research, a collaboration between UNDP and the Frederick S. Pardee Center, outlines a framework for a fair, low-carbon energy transition that considers the needs of both wealthy and lower-income nations. The report updates the second flagship publication, Leaving No One Behind: Impact of COVID-19 on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), examining an integrated set of policy strategies that accelerates climate actions while promoting human development. By supporting equitable access to energy, green investments, and digital infrastructure, it aims to foster inclusive, sustainable growth and align with the Paris Agreement targets.

The research finds that an additional 60 million people could be lifted from poverty by 2030, and upwards of 175 million people by 2050, through these ambitious, yet feasible policy choices. In addition, nine out of ten low-human development countries could make significant strides towards improving their current development outcomes by 2050 while carbon emissions are reduced by two-thirds by 2050.

Meisel, C. (2024, April 9). Opinion: There is more to NATO burden sharing than the 2% spending dogma. Defense News. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/2024/04/09/there-is-more-to-nato-burden-sharing-than-the-2-spending-dogma

As the NATO alliance prepares to gather this summer to celebrate its 75th birthday, rhetoric around “burden sharing” – specifically whether member countries are paying enough, where “enough” is typically defined as military spending equal to 2% of GDP – is likely to heat up. With a war raging just off NATO’s eastern flank as Ukraine defends itself against an aggressor that has become NATO’s raison d’etre, it’s a fair question: Are NATO member countries doing enough?

Sahel Human Development Report 2023. (2024, February 15). United Nations Development Programme. https://www.undp.org/africa/publications/sahel-human-development-report-2023

Sustainable energy could regenerate Africa’s Sahelian zone by using the region’s abundant clean energy potential to transform lives, diversify economies, give hope, and protect the planet. Analyzing viable pathways to move the Sahel away from energy dependency to energy agency that delivers accessible, reliable, and affordable energy for all, is the focus of this Human Development Report, which covers Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal. The HDR uses empirical techniques and political economy analyses to consider optimal energy strategies that would be most appropriate for the sub-region and also for each country's context.

Global Outlook 2024: Prospects for children - Cooperation in a fragmented world. (2024, January). UNICEF Innocenti - Global Office of Research and Foresight.

Full Citation: Mekonnen, S. M., Mbate, M., Osman-Elasha, B., Akol, C., Janneh, A et Al., (2022). 2022 Africa Sustainable Development Report. UNDP. https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/2023-01/Africa%20Sustainable%20Development-Report_2

The Coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and climate change have all hampered Africa’s efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Halfway towards 2030, most African countries are struggling to meet most SDG targets. Without deliberate policies to accelerate progress towards the SDGs, by 2030, at least 492 million people will be left in extreme poverty and at least 350 million people by 2050.

The report evaluates Africa’s progress towards the SDGs and the objectives of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 in the context of the triple crises of COVID-19, climate change, and the war in Ukraine, which are all adversely impacting the continent’s performance on both agendas.

Verhagen, W., Pereira, C. C., Bohl, D. K., Meziere, M. E., Irfan, M. T., Moyer J. M. (2022). "Guinea-Bissau: Exploring Alternative Futures of Development. Report 1: Economic and human development trends to 2040."

UNDP Guinea Bissau & Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures. Bissau, Guinea-Bissau and Denver, USA.

Access translations:

• French version
• Portuguese version

Verhagen, W., Bohl, D.K., Cilliers, J., Hughes, B.B., Kwasi, S., McNeil, K., Oosthuizen, M., Picci, L., Yutang Xiong, M., and Moyer, J.D. (2021). "Analysing long-term socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 across diverse African contexts."

Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures. Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs. Denver: Report for UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa.

Verhagen, W., Pereira, C. C., Bohl, D. K., Meziere, M. E., Irfan, M. T., & Moyer, J. D. (2022, March). Exploring Alternative Futures of Development: Economic and Human Development Trends to 2040. https://korbel.du.edu/sites/default/files/2022-03/DU-UNDP_G

Guinea-Bissau is currently one of the least developed countries in the world, ranking 178th out of 189 countries on the Human Development Index (2019). We study the economic and human development outlook to 2040. We show that economic growth will improve the human condition in Guinea-Bissau (extreme poverty, undernourishment and child stunting), but that progress remains stunted without addressing broader development progress in education, governance and infrastructure.