Inger Andersen is candid about what sees her wake up with fresh determination every day.
“My worst fear would be that we simply become complacent,” said Andersen, a Danish economist who has served as executive director of the UN environment program (UNEP) since 2019. She adds it is the poorest people who will suffer the most if we don’t act fast enough.
The exact price of a business-as-usual approach to the climate and environment is already trillions of dollars each year and rising, according to a UNEP report released today. It finds climate change could slash 4% off global GDP by 2050 and 20% by the end of the century.
The report shows the world is at a crossroads, says Andersen. “Continue down the road to a future devastated by climate change, dwindling nature, degraded land and polluted air, or change direction to secure a healthy planet, healthy people and healthy economies.”
Though actually, she continues, “this is no choice at all.”
Emissions hit new record highs in 2025, which is also on course to be the joint-second warmest year on record alongside 2023, according to new data from the EU’s Copernicus earth observation program.
Huge benefits to be gained
Andersen believes the new UNEP report, which was produced by 287 scientists across 82 countries, sets out a “roadmap” for global action.
The benefits of altering the world’s path include trillions of dollars every year in additional GDP, avoiding millions of deaths, and lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and hunger, according to the report’s scientists.
It states this will require coordinated action across government, business and society, to accelerate the shift towards sustainable agriculture, restoring ecosystems and switching to clean energy, as well as designing products and materials that last longer and reduce waste.
Andersen says it is a reminder of the importance of limiting our overuse of important resources — whether it be land, water, energy or otherwise — so there is a “degree of intergenerational equity for our children and grandchildren.”
The report’s authors highlight the need to shift behavioral patterns away from overconsumption in many parts of the world as well as economic transformations, such as moving beyond a focus on GDP to include measurements of human and environmental wellbeing and phasing out harmful subsidies like those flowing to fossil fuels.
This, they conclude, could bring $20 trillion (€17 trillion) in annual global economic benefits by 2070 which would rise from then on to $100 trillion.
A worldwide annual investment of around $8 trillion would be needed to help restore biodiversity and reach net-zero by 2050. This would be the point at which any remaining emissions in the atmosphere can be absorbed by nature or removed through technologies like carbon capture.
Yet this investment is far outweighed by the price of not acting, according to the report’s scientists.
Over the past 20 years, extreme weather events — such as floods, storms and wildfires — have cost an estimated $143 billion in damages.
In 2019, health impacts from air pollution amounted to 6% of global GDP and the economic costs of it are predicted to rise to $18-25 trillion by 2060, according to the UNEP.
2025: A year of mixed progress
The report arrives at the end of a year marked by mixed progress on climate and environmental issues.
“Obviously it’s been a difficult year for multilateralism,” says Andersen. But she remains optimistic about what countries working together can achieve.
Although “countries are not moving fast enough” to curb emissions, she explains progress has been made in avoiding higher temperature rises predicted when nations came together in 2015 to sign the Paris Agreement, which aimed to hold heating ideally to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
She was disappointed that this year’s UN climate conference in the Brazilian city of Belem did not deliver consensus on a path towards transitioning away from polluting oil, coal and gas.
But she is eager to see what emerges from the conference on accelerating the phase out of fossil fuels, led by the Netherlands and Colombia and scheduled for April.
“The climate convention is working, but we need to accelerate,” she says, adding that otherwise we will pay a high price in terms of fires, floods, droughts and heat.
Reasons to be hopeful about 2026
Looking ahead, Andersen says it is important to “celebrate the fact that renewable energy is becoming very, very competitive.”
She points to the “interesting phenomenon” of sources such as wind and solar now producing energy at a significantly lower cost than fossil fuels.
Andersen highlights the example of Texas in the US, which despite being an oil-producing state, is now able to get almost 40% of its electricity from renewables.
“It’s just interesting to see that the markets are moving in a direction that is a helpful to the climate crisis,” said Andersen, adding renewables is a sector that is “unstoppable because of the pricing and because of the competitiveness.”
Her greatest fear may be complacency, but Andersen is also energized by a movement of different groups pushing climate action — from businesses, to youth activists, scientists and religious leaders — which she sees as now so powerful it can’t be reversed.
“What gives me hope is that there are solutions and there are millions of people crying out for this.”
She hopes this will translate into political action. “I often say, take your grandchild by the hand or your daughter or the dream of a child in your mind as you walk into that voting booth and vote for them as well as for your own interests….And I think that that is a commitment that each of us has to make to those in our lives we love the very most.”
Edited by: Tamsin Walker
