scope:

This Recommendation provides guidelines on the provision of satellite-provided remote sensing data for the purpose of studying climate change.

The ITU Radiocommunication Assembly,

considering

a) that climate change is a global phenomenon affecting all humankind;

b) that climate change is expected to be manifested by serious changes in the Earth's environment in turn giving rise to, or exacerbating, natural disasters;

c) that inherent to the study of climate change are truly consistent, global Earth observing capabilities uniquely met by satellite-borne remote sensing instrumentation or sensors;

d) that such satellite-borne remote sensors exist and are operated in frequency bands allocated to the Earth exploration-satellite service (EESS) today,

recognizing

a) that Resolution 673 (WRC-07), "Radiocommunications use for Earth observation applications", considered that "Earth observation data are also essential for monitoring and predicting climate changes, ... for increasing the understanding, modelling and verification of all aspects of climate change, and for related policy-making, and further noted that more than 90 percent of natural disasters are climate- or weather-related; ... that, although meteorological and Earth observation satellites are currently only operated by a limited number of countries, the data and/or related analyses resulting from their operation are distributed and used globally ... by climate-change-related organizations";

b) that Resolution 672 (WRC-07), "Extension of the allocation to the meteorologicalsatellite service in the band 7 750-7 850 MHz", recognized that the data obtained by these meteorological satellites are essential for global weather forecast, climate changes and hazard predictions,

noting

a) that ITU-T Resolution 73, "Information and communication technologies and climate change", recognized that information and communications technologies (ICTs) can make a substantial contribution to mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change, as presented in Annex 1, and that ICTs play a vital role in monitoring and addressing climate change by supporting basic scientific research, which has helped to bring the issue of climate change into the public domain and to raise awareness of future challenges;

b) that ITU Report "ITU and climate change" speaks to strengthening strategic partnerships with various UN agencies, the World Bank, the European Commission, international and national agencies and organizations (for example, meteorological agencies, the Group on Earth Observations, EUMETSAT, ESA, the Space Frequency Coordination Group, JAXA, NOAA, NASA and Roscosmos), NGOs and the private sector involved in combating climate change and addressed the role that EESS plays in monitoring climate change;

c) that Report ITU-R RS.2178 provides an extensive overview of different radiocommunication applications employed for Earth observation, space research and radio astronomy and describes their societal weight and economic benefits for the global community and, especially, their importance for climate change monitoring and climate change prediction, and for early warning, monitoring and mitigation of man-made and natural disasters,

recommends

1 that administrations should recognize the importance of satellite-borne remote sensors to the study of climate change as explained in Annexes;

2 that operators should continue supplying climate-related environmental data;

3 that the protections given to systems providing crucial climatological observations should be emphasized.