World’s space agencies propose setting up climate observatory

PARIS: The heads of several of the world’s space agencies have proposed the creation of a climate observatory to pool acquired data and share it with scientists around the globe, according to a declaration adopted Monday in Paris.

On the eve of the One Planet Summit organised in the French capital, the space agencies’ chiefs met to discuss climate monitoring from space, including such areas as greenhouse gases, water resource management and the use of satellites during natural disasters. “Satellites are vital tools for studying and gaining new insights into climate change in order to mitigate its effects and help societies devise coping strategies,” France’s National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), which hosted the talks, said in a statement. It added that more than half of the 50 essential climate variables could be measured only from space.