International Year of Planet Earth: four reports on status and trends

Purpose – In 2007, the issues of global and climate change in particular, have become major issues in the social psyche. With the United Nations declaring 2008 the “International Year of Planet Earth”, this paper aims to look at four recent reports and comments on how the reports aim to deal with the climate and global change challenges ahead. Design/methodology/approach – After a brief introduction to the subject, this paper looks at each of the four reports in turn. It describes the methodology of each report and then discusses its relative strengths and weaknesses. This is followed by a conclusion on the reports as a whole and where policy makers can make improvements. Findings – All four reports are well structured and they have certainly raised the profile and illustrated the importance of global and climate change. However, there are a number of ways each could and should be improved in future updates. Practical implications – This paper aims to bring the reports to a wider audience and make recommendations on improvements to future reports on these important global issues. Originality/value – The paper evaluates four recent reports on the important social issues of global change and climate change. By comparing and contrasting the reports, the paper gives an overview of what some of the larger policy makers are doing to tackle global and climate change. The paper also makes recommendations for improvements to the reports.