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 on Monday.
On the eve of the 'One Planet Summit' in Paris, 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.
It added that more than half of the 50 essential climate variables could be measured only from space.
"The 'Paris Declaration' we have just adopted proposes to set up a Space Climate Observatory that will act as a hub between space agencies and the international scientific community," CNES president Jean-Yves Le Gall said.
He added that most countries did not currently share the climate data gathered by satellites. The countries that adopted the declaration initiated by France included India, China, Japan, Britain, Germany and Italy.