At the operational level, GEA has a two-tiered governance structure. The GEA Council, charged with overall governance, provides a forum in which stakeholders provide guidance to the scientific experts conducting the Assessment. Members of the Council have been selected to provide comprehensive range of stakeholders from business, NGOs, national governments, and the United Nations system. The membership is geographically diverse, and includes members from OECD and developing countries. The GEA Executive Committee or “ExComm” is appointed by the Council and consists of more than 20 scientific experts from five continents. The ExComm is tasked with carrying out the research and producing the written products of the GEA. The ExComm is working in an integrated manner to ensure that the GEA presents a coherent and complete analysis of the issues and options, and what can be said from a scientific and analytical perspective.

The goal of the GEA is to provide policy-relevant analysis and capacity-enhancing guidance to national governments and intergovernmental organizations, decision-support material to the commercial sector (energy service companies, investors and others), and analysis relevant to academic institutions. The analysis provided by GEA will provide technical support for the implementation of commitments aimed at mitigating climate change and sustainable consumption of resources, for example. The GEA will provide analyses supporting the development of multilateral approaches to the environmental challenges associated with energy systems. The GEA will propose a portfolio of policies that will address the global challenges related to energy. With respect to international processes, the GEA will address climate  change mitigation vis-à-vis the Bali Roadmap and other ongoing activities of the Conference of Parties under the UNFCCC and other efforts to mitigate energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. The Assessment will evaluate future commitments to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, for example, to levels 20+ percent below 1990-levels by 2020 and 50+ percent by 2050 and possibly also negative emissions during the second half of the century. Specifically, the GEA will examine resource and technology options and policy interventions needed to achieve such targets.
The GEA was formally launched in January 2007, and the bulk of the research and analysis began in earnest in the second half of 2008.

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Last updated: 14 Aug 2010