Without Big Changes, This Is What the Environment Will Look Like in 2050

“With a whole-of-government, whole-of-society effort humanity can still turn the ship around,” says Maarten Kappelle, Chief of Service in UNEP’s Office of Science.

“But if countries continue to drag their collective feet, billions of people will face an uncertain future, especially those in the developing world.”

GEO-7, the work of nearly 300 scientists, created a model of what the planet would look like in 2050 if nations continued to do three environmentally destructive things: pollute, pump out greenhouse gasses and destroy natural spaces.

In the first of three stories about the report, here are some of the key findings of that modelling.

Planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions are expected to rise to 75 billion tonnes a year by 2050 – a nearly 50 per cent jump from today.

This will destabilize the climate and lead to a surge in heatwaves, which are expected to affect nearly everyone on Earth – some 9.2 billion people – by 2050. Almost no corner of the planet will remain untouched by extreme heat.

By 2050, humans will be pulling 165 billion tonnes of raw materials from the Earth annually. This represents a more than 60 per cent jump from 2020.

GEO-7 says the extraction of all these metals, minerals and fossil fuels will destroy many natural spaces, worsening climate change and feeding biodiversity loss.

Climate change alone is expected to shave 4 per cent off global gross domestic product annually by 2050. As temperatures rise and the crisis deepens, that number will rise to a staggering 20 per cent by 2100.

That would be just a little less than the contraction the United States of America suffered during the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s.

The downturn will be magnified by the effects of pollution and the disappearance of nature. The poor will suffer the most from this economic upheaval and the gap between them and the rich will continue to widen.

GEO-7 foresees a slight drop in air pollution by 2050. But because of increasing urbanization, the absolute number of people exposed to airborne pollutants will rise.

By 2050, 4.2 billion people will regularly inhale dangerous levels of one particularly problematic substance, PM 2.5. The report estimates that air-pollution-related deaths will cost the global economy US$18-25 trillion through 2060.

The world will lose 1 million square kilometres of forests, peatlands and other natural spaces. This is largely due to the expansion of cropland needed to feed a rising global population with a growing taste for meat.

Because of the loss of ecosystems, the planet’s mean species abundance – a single number that captures the diversity and distribution of life – is expected to drop 3 per cent. 

Climate change, left unchecked, will expose about 1.1 billion more people to heavy rains and an additional 900 million people to intense drought by 2050.

This climactic one-two punch will help push up to 132 million people into poverty and put another 24 million people at risk of hunger by 2040.

By 2050, 3.3 billion people – one third of the planet – will face water stress.

GEO-7 says the world is approaching a series of climate-related thresholds from which there may be no return. The Greenland and Western Antarctic ice sheets could collapse, causing sea levels to rise 10 metres.

Thawing permafrost could release massive amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, supercharging warming.

The Amazon rainforest may wither into a savannah, depriving the planet of one of its most important carbon sinks.

Nearly every warm-water coral would disappear, devastating undersea ecosystems and threatening fisheries around the world. Even ocean currents and the Jet Stream could be affected, throwing the climate into disarray.

There is still time to save the planet – and us

As serious as the situation is, the Earth’s future is not written in stone, GEO-7 argues. There is time for humanity to address climate change, nature loss and pollution.

But it will take urgent and unprecedented changes in how countries govern their economies, handle materials and waste, generate energy, produce food, use raw materials, and treat the environment. 

For more on that, read the next in our series of stories on GEO-7, set for publication on Dec 22.

About the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) 

Launched in 1997, the GEO series offers an unparalleled look at the state of the natural world and provides policymakers with a blueprint for creating a healthier planet.

Its seventh edition, titled A Future We Choose, was released in December 2025. For a summary of the report, check out this interactive feature.