GEO-4 Chapter 9: The Future Today

Developing scenarios of global environmental and societal change

What might be the future of the global environment and what would this mean for humanity?

As part of the development of GEO-4, the fourth in a series of comprehensive reports published by the United Nations Environment Programme assessing the global environment, IISD is helping to coordinate the development of Chapter 9, "The Future Today," the main forward-looking chapter in this volume. The outlook component of the GEO reports explores possible futures with a focus on the environmental implications of various trends and societal choices. The actual nature of the outlook component has evolved markedly from report to report. Three areas in particular where this evolution has occurred are: 1) greater balance between narrative and quantification; 2) the incorporation of participatory processes in the development of the outlook component; and 3) the use of a set of multiple, plausible futures vis-à-vis a single business–as-usual, best-guess or reference scenario. These reflect the broad trends in both the theory and practice of scenario development over the past decade.

Building on the scenario work in GEO-3, Chapter 9 of GEO-4 is exploring the consequences and implications of alternative, comprehensively-defined pathways into the future. It considers four contrasting, yet all plausible scenarios for society, with a strong narrative component complemented by quantitative analysis. The GEO-4 process aims to build on GEO-3 in the following ways:

GEO-4 has been released.

For more information, please register at the chapter Web site or contact IISD Senior Researcher Dale S. Rothman.