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ESA exhibit opens at COP15 
Today marks the official opening of ESA’s exhibition ‘Space for Earth, Understanding Climate Change from Space’ at the UN Climate Change Conference, COP15, in Copenhagen, Denmark. COP15 marks a fundamental step giving politicians, decision-makers and world leaders the opportunity to discuss the most pressing environmental challenges we face today. The exhibit, hosted in partnership with the Danish Ministry for Science, is located at Kongens Nytorv in the city centre and shows how satellites are playing an important role in observing the many aspects of our ever-changing planet.
Several experts spoke at the event about various aspects of space in climate change research. Showing a variety of breath-taking images of Earth from his two trips to the International Space Station in 2006 and 2009, ESA astronaut Christer Fuglesang said: "We do not realise how fragile Earth’s atmosphere is, and we should all work together to preserve it."
In his address, ESA’s Head of Science, Applications and Future Technologies Department, Dr Stephen Briggs commented: "With Earth observation satellites, we can contribute to managing climate change mitigation and adaptation. It is important to base decisions from facts, and the facts can be based on satellite data."
Along with a selection of invaluable data on Earth’s climate, weather and environment, an impressive full-scale model of ESA’s CryoSat-2 satellite to be launched next February is on display.
Rene Forbserg, Head of Geodynamics at Denmark’s National Space Institute (DTU-Space), said: "COP15 is all about climate change, and CryoSat-2 is going to give us data about this."
"Like many others, we in Denmark look forward to the launch of CryoSat-2," said Helge Sander, Danish Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation. "Denmark is also part of the ESA-led Climate Change Initiative, and I am confident that this will greatly benefit science."
ESA started the Climate Change Initiative by making full use of Europe’s Earth observation space assets and working with international partners to exploit robust satellite-based long-term global records of essential climate variables.
ESA has a vigorous Earth observation programme, which includes launching 20 satellites over the next 10 years. These include the family of Earth Explorers that will measure key Earth System processes, the Sentinels that will provide operational information services for global monitoring of the environment and security and meteorological missions.
The fleet of ESA’s Earth observation satellites, including ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat, has gathered enormous amounts of data about our planet. Archived over 30 years and increasing daily, these data will form the basis for extracting the variables most relevant to climate change and for the implementation of a follow-on Protocol should one be decided in Copenhagen.
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