European Climate Situation Room

As space-based data resources provide an ever-clearer overview of climate change’s impact on the Earth, it’s essential to build the trust necessary to persuade policymakers and the public to take the right decisions to protect the planet, a Friends of Europe online debate concluded.

“The central idea of what we’re doing globally as an international community on climate change is that trust is the basis of cooperation,” (6:49) said Koko Warner, Lead Author of the 2019 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Climate Change and Land and Manager for Impacts, Vulnerabilities and Risks at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“This is a tremendous decade ahead of all of us, as humanity, to build a bright future and it centres on trust,” (6:53) Warner added. “So, a key question … is how can Earth observation and other technologies build trust and help us actually see that future that we’re going to build together? That’s, for me, the main idea.”

Warner joined stakeholders from the private and public sector, international organisations and civil society for the debate as part of Friends of Europe’s new Making Space Matter initiative, run in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA).

She stressed the role of experts and technology in monitoring efforts by governments to meet their climate commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, a theme at November’s UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.

From the European Space Agency, Toni Tolker-Nielsen, Acting Director of the ESA Earth Observation Programmes and Head of the European Space Research Institute (ESRIN), underscored the increasingly crucial role that space-based monitoring plays in the fight to contain climate change.

“Observation from space is essential to understand and react to what we now call the climate crisis or the climate emergency,” (17:59) he said. “Everybody has understood that things are changing and we are taking the pulse of the Earth from space.”

Tolker-Nielsen explained how the use of big data, artificial intelligence and high-performance computing is enabling the Agency to create ‘digital twins of the Earth’ to boost foresight analysis that can feed into informed decision-making.

From the private sector, Christian Hoffmann, Founder and Managing Director of Geoville, an Austrian company providing satellite-based land-monitoring and geo-information, explained the importance of translating data from space into practical solutions on the ground.

“The cause of climate change is, of course, global, but the impact is very local,” (33:42) he said.

Hoffmann outlined how Geoville works in 135 countries, deploying data to help communities adapt to climate impacts at a local level. As an example, he cited work monitoring seawater levels off the archipelago nation of São Tomé e Príncipe that helped 9,200 people protect their homes.

The importance of local action was also highlighted by Ida Auken, Member of the Danish National Parliament and 2012 European Young Leader (EYL40). She said humanity needs to invent a ‘macroscope’ to help citizens see “the big picture and see our role in the big picture, see that small actions matter in the big picture”.

Doing that can inspire change and help make it easier for people to do the right thing.

“All the data, the space data that we’re getting, it should help us see our small actions in the big picture,” (52:40) Auken said, pointing to examples in Denmark such as using weather data to manage waste-water flows, or the publication of maps that show people if their homes are at risk from climate-related flooding.

Such down-to-earth solutions are needed to take full advantage of the ‘transformational’ tools provided by geospatial data assessments, said Veronika Hunt Šafránková, Head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Brussels Office.

“Linking science to policy and decision-making on different levels, whether it’s local or regional, national, international remains stronger than ever,” (44:23) Hunt Šafránková added. “Science most definitely must lie at the heart of all decision-making.”

Like other speakers, Hunt Šafránková stressed the importance of individual responsibility in the climate emergency. She pointed out that almost two-thirds of global emissions are linked to households and the mobility, residential and food sectors: “Our impact as individuals is actually huge and what we can do as individuals is also huge.” (47:10)