As a significant contribution to the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), the fifth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-5) builds on previous reports, continuing to provide analyses of the state, trends and outlook for, and responses to, environmental change, including extreme events from storm, flood and drought, to the Fukushima disaster in 2011. It also adds new dimensions through its assessment of progress towards meeting internationally agreed goals, such as the development of programmes for mitigating the effects of extreme water-related events, and identifying gaps in their achievement (Chapters 2–6), on analysing promising response options that have emerged in the regions (Chapters 9–15), and presenting potential responses for the international community (Chapters 16–17). Furthermore, for the first time, GEO-5 suggests that there should be a fundamental shift in the way environmental issues are analysed, with consideration given to the drivers of global change, rather than merely to the pressures on the environment.
