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Depends on who is in
charge: Christine Whitman or John
Poindexter? Or maybe this is Bush’s way
of making it up to the environmentally-conscious American voter, without having
to mispronounce the word “Kyoto” all the time. Smile. - KWC US to call for system
monitoring the environment
The US is to urge the world's governments to set up an
"integrated Earth observation system" to "take the pulse of the
planet". It would combine satellite and ground-based observations of
weather, climate, vegetation and other environmental indicators. The Bush administration is to hold an Earth Observation
Summit in Washington this summer to which it hopes the G8 group of industrialised
countries will send cabinet-level representatives. Some observers see the July 31 summit as an effort by the
administration to improve its international environmental credentials, in
response to charges that it is not taking global warming seriously enough. Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, head of the US National
Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration and a prime mover behind the summit,
told the FT: "We need more observing to support climate policy as well as
other environmental challenges. We are still very much engaged in working
internationally on this issue." Parts of a global Earth observation system already exist,
including weather and other remote sensing satellites and scientific buoys on
the ocean surface, but today's arrangements are fragmentary compared with the
US vision of the integrated system of the future. The summit will set up a
working group to draw up a 10-year implementation plan. The whole system will require an investment of billions of
dollars though it has not been formally costed. Just completing comprehensive
coverage of the ocean surface with floating monitors would cost an estimated
$500m (?435m, £301m). Admiral Lautenbacher said the investment would deliver great
economic benefits. "We already receive an excellent return on our weather
services. For example, farmers get an estimated $15 of value out of every
dollar spent on forecasting the weather," he said. "Imagine the
benefits of being able to make reliable forecasts of future climate - and
relate these to biological changes." The first steps to establishing an integrated Earth
observation system are likely to involve existing national and international
bodies, such as the World Meteorological Organisation, working more closely
together and with better arrangements for sharing data. In the longer run an
entirely new international organisation might be set up. The
integrated Earth observation system might even provide conclusive evidence that
climate change is a real and urgent global problem. |
