Knowledge representation in global environmental assessments - Patterns among authors of the Global Environmental Outlook

As environmental policymaking is increasingly dependent on and intertwined with environmental knowledge, global networks and processes for identifying and producing policy-relevant knowledge gain increasing authority. Global environmental assessments seek to provide a sound evidence base that can be used to inform environmental policy. However, one of the biggest challenges remains to ensure that all relevant perspectives are adequately integrated. Drawing on the controversial debate on expertise in environmental policy and the relationship between knowledge representation and patterns of authorship, we study the deliberative processes among participating experts of global environmental assessments. More specifically, we examine the expert network informing the Global Environmental Outlook (GEO), published by the United Nations Environment Programme to provide an independent assessment of the state of the environment. By identifying authors’ institutional affiliation, country of research base, and gender, we reveal the extent of inequalities in the authorship and dominating perspectives of the reports, and how it has changed over the last two decades. We show that academic and technical knowledge from governmental organizations dominates the GEO. Despite efforts to ensure a gender balance among GEO authors, 67 percent of the contributors are male, and the percentage of female authors has only slightly increased since 2002. We also find that knowledge institutions in the Global North have dominated the GEO. We propose a research agenda to study minority status and intersectionality effects among the participants of global environmental assessments in greater detail, and to re-examine knowledge practices to better accommodate pluralism in global environmental governance.