United States Intervention
Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr.
Undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Meeting of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice
Tuesday, December 2, 2003

Research And Systematic Observation (Agenda Item 7)

Mr. Chairman,

This has been a year to highlight the importance of systematic Earth observations as the basis for sound science, which in turn should be the basis for decision support tools and sound policy. And not only highlight -- this has been a year to begin to do something about improving the coordination of systems and minimizing data gaps.

Earth Observation Summit
The United States was pleased to host on July 31 the Earth Observation Summit, as well as the first meeting of the Group on Earth Observations on August 1 and 2. The Earth Observation Summit was intended to build a partnership among countries to address a key need and thus marked an important milestone in the development of a comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained Earth observation system or systems. Thirty-three nations and the European Commission adopted a Declaration that signifies a political commitment to move toward development of a comprehensive system that would empower decision makers to monitor continuously the state of the Earth, increase understanding of dynamic Earth processes, enhance prediction of the Earth system, and further implement international environmental treaty obligations. Ministers from developed and developing countries seek through their agreement to increase timely, quality, long-term, global information, which can serve as a basis for sound decision making for the benefit of society.

While the focus of such a comprehensive, coordinated Earth observation system would be broader than climate, the climate community should benefit immeasurably from the greater coordination, interconnectivity, and capacity intended. Such a system is essential for a wide range of priority applications; for example, for management of agriculture, forestry, water, ecosystems, energy resources, disaster reduction, and sustainable development.

The text of the Declaration of the Earth Observation Summit is available at the U.S. exhibit.

Group on Earth Observation
The Earth Observation Summit established an intergovernmental, ad hoc Group on Earth Observations or GEO to prepare a 10-year Implementation Plan for a comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained Earth observation system. GEO met for the second time last week to discuss the way ahead and give guidance to five subgroups on the first draft of the foundation document. International organizations are playing a key role in the work of the sub-groups, since those organizations have been instrumental in the development and maintenance of existing systems that will serve as the backbone for a future global network. A Framework Document will be ready for ministerial consideration at Earth Observation Summit-2 in Japan in April. The full Implementation Plan will be ready for adoption by Earth Observation Summit-3 in Europe at the end of 2004.

The Summit Declaration emphasizes that all countries are invited and encouraged to join in this initiative.

GCOS Support
Mr. Chairman, let me hasten to add that the United States would also like to state its continued strong support for the activities of the Global Climate Observing System or GCOS. We see GCOS as a key component of a coordinated, interconnected system of Earth observation satellite and in situ systems.

The U.S. is working to aid the effective implementation of GCOS both in the U.S., as well as globally via the President’s Climate Change Research Initiative or CCRI. This year, the United States, working with the GCOS Secretariat, committed almost $5 million to begin to address the most critical needs and deficiencies of GCOS upper air observing sites, as well as the establishment of new aerosol climate observing sites in the Indo-Asian-Pacific region. In addition, this funding is used to support the operations of the GCOS Secretariat, stage GCOS regional workshops in developing countries, and support critical GCOS data management activities at the GCOS Lead Data Center.

This funding follows the $600,000 contributed last year by the United States to help support development of the GCOS Second Adequacy Report for which we congratulate GCOS for executing a document that identifies key climate variables required and priority recommendations for parties to implement. U.S. funding demonstrates our continued commitment to work with our international partners to build a sound base of scientific knowledge for climate change policy decisions. The United States calls upon other donor countries to join in providing funding towards the goal of a more robust and sustainable GCOS system.

GCOS Cooperation Fund
The GCOS Cooperation Mechanism would provide a voluntary means by which nations could contribute toward improving observing systems identified as global priorities. The GCOS Steering Committee in early April 2003 endorsed the Australian proposal to establish a GCOS Cooperation Mechanism and associated Cooperation Board as a function of GCOS. SBSTA also added its encouragement. Subsequently, a GCOS Cooperation Mechanism has been established as a component of the existing GCOS fund, but with separate accounting, to support the implementation of priority activities, as determined by the GCOS Cooperation Board. Because the implementation of a robust global observing system for climate will require the participation of the global community, we encourage other nations to join us in identifying those elements of GCOS that they are able to fund both at home and abroad.

U.S. Climate Change Science Program
Finally, as you know, the U.S. Government invited comments from our international colleagues in the development of a Strategic Plan for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. That plan is currently available and provides the basis for identifying and prioritizing those elements of climate science that the United States intends to implement. The plan involved a comprehensive examination of research and observation needs, transparent review by all the international scientific stakeholder communities, and establishment of defined goals for the research.

Since the release of the Strategic Plan in July, the Climate Change Science Program has been moving from planning to implementation. The program brings together the resources and expertise of 13 departments and agencies in the United States federal government. This program has implemented an interagency management structure to assure joint planning of approximately $1.7 billion annual budget in directly sponsored research and to leverage related research conducted by the collaborating U.S. agencies.

We invite you to the U.S. exhibit featuring, this week, our Climate Change Science Program. We have several scientists there who would be pleased to discuss with you the different elements of the program.

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the opportunity to address these issues. We have great opportunities before us in the field of Earth observation.