ABSTRACT
Aside from documenting environmental state and trends, the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) reports have consistently featured several other lines of analysis. First, there is the Outlook proper, exploring the future some decades ahead and extracting strategic signals. Second, other key themes such as the Earth system, environmental data and options for action were often singled out for special treatment. Third, the regional content in the GEOs has varied greatly from one edition to another. This chapter tells how these three particular lines of analysis evolved in size and role. In addition, it highlights a fourth important category in GEO’s global reporting, being the companion products and technical reports. These helped bridge the six major GEO report processes and made GEO more transparent for a broader audience in terms of data, detailed overviews of regional impacts, methodology and network formation. For this fourth category, the current chapter provides an overview only, whereas related Annex IV offers a complete list.
