Global Environment Outlook 3 (GEO 3)

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PREFACE

are becoming increasingly vulnerable to environmental change. Some countries can cope but many others remain at risk and when that risk becomes a reality their dreams of sustainable development are set back by decades. The notion of human vulnerability to environmental change has been incorporated specifically into this GEO assessment to demonstrate UNEP concern in an area which has a strong bearing on the success of sustainable development. UNEP places the concept of human vulnerability to environmental change high on its future programme of work. GEO-3 also breaks new ground by using scenario analysis to explore the environmental outlook, fast- forwarding the reader into an array of alternative futures that provide insight on where events could lead us at various stages between 2002 and 2032. While some of the possible developments may seem far removed from current circumstances, others have been predetermined by the decisions and actions we have already taken. We know that some of the policy approaches followed in the past have not lived up to

expectations and that institutional weaknesses have played an inevitable part in such slippages. At the Rio +5 event in 1997, it became clear that progress had fallen short of the goals set in 1992. Five years later the challenges remain no less exacting. Yet we at UNEP remain convinced that it lies well within the scope of human determination and ingenuity to come up with appropriate policy packages and use them to ensure that fundamental environmental conditions can and will get steadily better, not stealthily worse. This report abounds with information that can serve as a firm foundation for the WSSD review of policies for sustainable development. I hope many will find it useful as an aid to prepare for the Summit, during the event itself and well beyond. It is being published in all the official UN languages so that people and communities round the world can make use of its insights to form their own position on what is at stake and what needs to be done. On a personal note, I hope that it will inspire you, the reader, to raise your commitment to environmental care to a summit of its own.

Klaus Töpfer United Nations Under-Secretary General and Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme