The sixth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-6), UNEP’s flagship integrated environmental assessment was published in March 2019, during the fourth United Nations Environment Assembly. The report stresses that the scale of the environmental challenges we face requires true transformational change in how we produce and consume energy and food as well as how we manage waste, rather than simply incremental policies and business as usual. Among the long list of ongoing damage to life and health from air pollution, water pollution and land degradation, the report warned that zoonotic diseases are already 60 per cent of all emerging infectious diseases and that pandemics could occur.

The Technical Summary of GEO-6 distills the science and data in the main report and synthesizes the information to make it more accessible to students and scientists, making it more useful both for teaching and learning at the university level.