GEO7 Scenarios

An environmentally and socio-economically sustainable and just future is achievable but would require unprecedented, coordinated, rapid, and innovative transformations across the economic and financial, materials/waste, energy, and food systems, while ensuring a resilient environment system.

GEO-7 target-seeking scenarios

There are still several pathways to achieving the intended goals. The GEO-7 Behaviour-focused Transformation Pathway and the Technology-focused Transformation Pathway assessed here achieve the goals based on different combinations of social and technical shifts, but both have major implications for energy, materials/waste and food systems.

Behaviour-focused transformation pathway

The Behaviour-focused transformation describes a world in which society transforms its core values towards sufficiency, placing less emphasis on material consumption and status, and reducing the pressure on natural systems.

In the Behaviour-focused transformation, goals are achieved through lifestyle, behavioural and value changes. It envisions a future where increased societal awareness of global environmental crises drives a shift toward a sufficiency worldview. This transformation is guided by principles of sharing, reciprocity, responsibility and care, local-to-global outlooks, and aiming to reconcile human well-being with ecosystem health. Multiple forms of knowledge are combined, including mainstream science and Indigenous and Local Communities (ILC)’s philosophies, practices and values. Examples include climate change adaptation measures, regeneration of abandoned lands, and governing fisheries and rivers. Aligned with these general assumptions, coherent solutions are adopted for each system:

Environmental systems:
Guided by principles of land sharing, there is an increase in symbiotic/sustainable use of protected areas (terrestrial, freshwater, marine), aiming for 50% of the world in 2050. Natural regrowth/restoration on abandoned agricultural lands due to changes in the food system provides carbon removal service.

Economic systems:
Beyond economic growth and GDP as a measure of well-being. Reduction of externalities through a combination of pricing and non-pricing instruments. Investments in technological and social solutions oriented towards enabling human and nature wellbeing.

Energy systems:
Behavioural and lifestyle changes lead to reductions in energy demand in rich regions, while middle-and lower-income gain access to basic energy services. Emergence of "prosumers" facilitated through small-scale decentralized electricity generation. Micro-grids, demand-side management, and distributed storage are scaled up.

Food systems:
Shift from input-based to biodiversity-based practices, use of mixed systems, and Indigenous and local knowledge in production. Rainwater management increases yields on rainfed cropland. Waste reduction by community- based food production and distribution. There is a strong shift to plant-based foods, particularly amongst populations with over consumption of meat produced unsustainably. Lower demand for industrial and processed foods, with an emphasis on recovering traditional foodways.

Circularity:
Reduced material footprints by avoiding conspicuous consumption and a digitally supported sharing economy. Reusing, repairing, refurbishing, recycling of products and materials becomes the norm. Informal circularity networks are fostered by providing access to infrastructure and training. Unsustainable and harmful components and products are replaced by more environmentally friendly, humane and sustainable alternatives.

Technology-focused transformation pathway

The Technology-focused transformation describes a highly globalized and market-driven world that relies primarily on technological development and efficiency gains in both supply and demand to overcome the global environmental crises.

In the Technology-focused transformation, the goals are achieved through innovation and technological solutions. It envisions a future characterized by an urbanized world with significant global trade and technological spill-over and leapfrogging, in which society relies on price-mediated and technological solutions together with expert and scientific knowledge:

Environmental systems:
Guided by the principle of sparing, biodiversity hotspots are protected, and the efficient use of non-protected areas allowing the regeneration of large areas of natural vegetation. Natural vegetation covering more than 30% is pursued together with significant afforestation via planted forests.

Economic systems:
Reduction of externalities through pricing mechanisms and efficiency gains. High investments in technical solutions to environmental and social problems, while valuing multiple ecosystem services and human capabilities as a metric of well-being.

Energy systems:
Supply-side investments with a focus on efficiency, clean energy, interconnectivity, and high levels of electrification. The electricity system is built around centralized distribution networks, large-scale supply and storage of electricity, and large-scale grid interconnections. Technological solutions, including power-to-liquids, advanced biofuels, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage are made mainstream.

Food systems:
Aligned to the land-sparing principle, i.e., producing more in less area, freeing land for nature restoration, biodiversity protection, and conservation. Adoption of efficient irrigation, automated agricultural production, and the substitution of animal products by novel foods such as cultured meat. Technical means are adopted to tackle food waste and losses.

Circularity:
Design driven by cradle-to-cradle concerns, increased efficiency, and reduced waste. Monitoring, reviewing, and redesigning of products and implementation of necessary infrastructure, improves recyclability and enables high recycling rates. Efficient modular design in buildings and goods reduces their material footprint and increases their longevity and ability to be refurbished. Technological solutions including machine learning contribute to waste management and circular supply chains.

Scenario Requirements

Internationally agreed (or adopted) environmental goals and targets are achievable, where multiple pathways are possible, resulting in benefits for people and planet, all requiring integrated transformation across the systems.

a. The scenario analysis shows that achieving environmental goals simultaneously while also improving human well-being requires unprecedented action, combining a range of transformative solutions across the systems. The two GEO-7 target-seeking scenarios describe alternative combinations of transformative solutions based on diverging narratives of societal values and approaches to solving the global environmental crises while improving human well-being. They are not predictions or an endorsement of specific solutions, nor are they mutually exclusive, but rather act as a means to explore possible alternative futures, highlighting the extent of the required transformation, and the interactions across the five systems and environmental and human well-being goals. For both pathways, the required changes across the systems are much larger than the projected level of change under a continuation of current trends.

b. Coordinated effort across the interlinked systems is necessary to reduce the pressure on natural resources and the environment and to create enabling conditions that harness synergies across systems and goals and reduce potential trade-offs. Both efficiency improvements and lifestyle changes away from wasteful and superfluous consumption reduce energy, land, and material demand, reducing pressures on natural resources and the environment. Reducing energy demand aids rapid decarbonization of the energy system while curbing the required renewable energy expansion and associated infrastructure development and demand for critical energy transition minerals. Addressing unsustainable production and consumption of animal-sourced foods, as well as food losses and waste, frees up large areas currently dedicated to feed and food production, enabling the land system to be a net carbon sink and for ecosystems to be conserved. These solutions act as important enablers for cross-system synergies, contributing to meeting climate, biodiversity, land degradation, and pollution goals, simultaneously. However, some of the solutions might present significant trade-offs. For example, dependence on carbon dioxide removal technologies such as large-scale afforestation and use of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage could lead to land competition, threats to biodiversity, and the need for higher agricultural yields with associated pressures from water and fertilizer use. Furthermore, dependence on changing lifestyles and diets requires a rapid and radical shift in people’s attitudes and relation to nature. Integrated planning is therefore necessary to manage both synergies and trade-offs across systems and goals.

c. The long-term benefits of actions which avoid economic damages caused by the global environmental crises vastly outweigh the costs of the transformation. The macroeconomic costs implied in the GEO-7 target-seeking scenarios peak at US$3 trillion per year around 2040, approximately 1.5 per cent of the projected global GDP. This investment avoids future costs of inaction. After 2050, the economic damages of the global environmental crises will become increasingly severe. The overall macroeconomic annual benefits of transformation are projected to begin around 2050, increasing to US$20 trillion per year by 2070 and over US$100 trillion per year by 2100 – contributing to increasing future global GDP to over 6 per cent and 25 per cent, respectively. These long-term benefits may be an underestimation as the calculated costs of inaction only account for climate change impacts, and do not include tipping points and impacts from the other global environmental crises.

d. System transformations bring multiple benefits for human well-being. These benefits are achieved in part from cleaner air resulting from decarbonizing the energy system, dietary shifts away from animal-sourced foods, and improvements in agricultural practices. Furthermore, the reduced demand and competition for natural resources may make it easier to achieve universal access to safe drinking water and modern energy services, as well as poverty eradication. Cumulatively, these benefits allow for healthier and more productive societies, with over 9 million premature deaths avoided by 2050, increasing to over 50 million by 2100, reducing burdens on health systems and vulnerable populations.

SOURCES: GEO7 Executive Summary: https://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/49015
GEO7: https://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/49014