World's space agencies come together to face climate challenge

Space agencies of more than 60 countries, under the impetus of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the French Space Agency (CNES), have agreed to come together to combat climate challenge. The announcement was made on 3 June 2016.

It is for the first time that the space agencies have agreed to engage their satellites to coordinate their methods and their data to monitor human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.

What made world’s space agencies come together?
• Without satellites, the reality of global warming would not have been recognised and the subsequent historic agreement at the United Nations headquarters in New York on 22 April 2016 would not have been signed.
• Out of the 50 essential climate variables being monitored in the present time, 26, including rising sea level, sea ice extent and greenhouse gas concentrations in all layers of the atmosphere, can be measured only from space.
• The key to effectively implementing the Paris Agreement lies in the ability to verify that nations are fulfilling their commitments to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
• The world’s space agencies decided to establish an independent, international system to centralise data from their Earth-observing satellites through the New Delhi Declaration that officially came into effect on 16 May 2016.
• The agencies will inter-calibrate these satellite data so that they can be combined and compared over time.