This assessment, Global Environment Outlook 6: Regional assessment for North America, was carried out in order to characterize the priority environmental issues, states and trends in the region in a systematic, evidence-based manner, as input into the sixth iteration of UNEP’s flagship Global Environment Outlook (GEO-6) process.
Experts and government representatives identified regional priorities for North America at the Regional Environmental Information Network (REIN) conference held in Ottawa-Gatineau, 27-29 May 2015. These regional priorities have been used, in part, to inform and guide this regional assessment. This document provides a summary of key findings and policy messages emerging from the assessment.
The assessment includes four main Chapters:
- Chapter 1 provides an overview of the regional priorities addressed in the report, explains why each is important to the region, and provides a summary of the overall assessment.
- Chapter 2 discusses the state of the environment in the region according to key environmental themes (air, water, land, biota, and chemicals and waste) as well as cross-cutting challenges (climate change, the Arctic, energy, non-point source contaminants and contaminants of emerging concern), and analyses the key trends for each issue.
- Chapter 3 reviews policy responses on these environmental issues in North America.
- Chapter 4 reviews the main trends that will affect the region’s environment in the future and explores the actions needed for the region to achieve a more sustainable future.