Beyond consensus: Reimagining global assessments for a liveable planet

Global Environmental Assessments (GEAs), such as those produced by the climate panel IPCC and its equivalent for biodiversity, IPBES, shape international agreements, influence research agendas, and frame how governments and institutions respond to planetary crises. A new international review published in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, co-authored by researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Centre , argues that these assessments have reached a crossroads.

The Centre has a long history of engagement in GEAs, rooted in its mission to understand the dynamic interactions between people and nature in the biosphere. Several of the study’s authors, including Centre researchers Garry Peterson and Lisen Schultz, among others, contributed to the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which linked ecosystem health to human well-being and integrated Indigenous and local knowledge into global science.

Breaking the “Consensus Trap”

While assessments have grown more interdisciplinary and solution-oriented, their expanding scope has also created structural tensions. The review notes that current GEAs are increasingly taxing the capacity of the scientific community: the number of framing questions has expanded significantly, while the number of contributors has remained relatively stable.

Traditional consensus-building processes can also become a constraint. Government involvement in “line-by-line” approval often produces lowest-common-denominator texts that are cautious in tone, downplay urgency, and avoid recommending specific actions.

“Assessments were built for a world that believed global consensus would drive change,” says Garry Peterson. “Today we know that knowledge alone is not enough. If assessments are to matter, they must support action at many levels rather than focus on UN processes.”

The GEA 3.0 Framework: Pluralism and polycentric action

Rather than continuing to grow larger and more complex, the authors outline a more flexible “ecosystem” of assessment approaches that they call “GEA 3.0.”

• From consensus to pluralism: Future assessments would more explicitly engage with multiple forms of knowledge and political perspectives, weighing trade-offs rather than smoothing differences to achieve diluted agreement.
• Targeting change agents: To remain relevant, assessments should directly support cities, businesses, finance and trade ministries, and civil society actors — not only environmental departments — recognising that these actors shape many of the drivers of environmental change.
• A decentralized toolbox: The review highlights the need to strengthen sub-global capacity by providing tools, templates and methodologies that enable regions and sectors to conduct assessments suited to their own contexts.
• Dynamic, non-static delivery: Assessments could move beyond static PDF reports toward more interactive and adaptive knowledge platforms capable of responding to rapidly evolving conditions.

There remains a critical need for institutions that synthesize knowledge about planetary-scale processes and cross-scale interactions. The authors propose that to remain reliable, relevant and responsive, GEAs may need to evolve from a single dominant model into a more diverse landscape that includes targeted assessments such as the Eat-Lancet Commission, as well as other more interactive ways of providing useful scientific knowledge.

Global environmental assessments have adapted before. The question now is whether they can adapt again — in time to support the transformations required for a liveable planet.