Montreal outcomes: forest focus could enhance role of space in combating climate change   The United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP 11/MOP 1) took place in Montreal in November-December 2005   The shadows from tall buildings are visible in this Proba HRC image of downtown Montreal, acquired 10 January 2004.   Downtown Montreal   Plenary session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, taking place in Montreal in November-December 2005   Three-dimensional view of Switzerland land use map, incorporating digital elevation model data, seen from the north.   The ESA team manning the stand during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal, November-December 2005   Olivier Arino, Head of ESA's EO Projects Section, makes a speech to be webcast from the UNFCCC website Satellite monitoring cited as part of the climate solution     The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission previously produced the one-km-resolution Global Land Cover 2000 (GLC 2000) map produced from SPOT 5 Vegetation Instrument data for the year 2000. The new global land cover maps produced during ESA's GLOBCOVER will be compatible with GLC 2000, serving as an update. Satellites in support of biodiversity     A new project to create the sharpest ever global land cover map is being backed through the Data User Element, part of the Earth Observation Envelope Programme. The GLOBCOVER project is mainly relying on Envisat MERIS Full Resolution mode data. This chart is a comparison of different mosaics of the same site in Siberia acquired using the 30-metre spatial resolution Landsat ETM+, the around ten times greater resolution MERIS and the 1-km resolution SPOT 5 VGT. What is clear is that MERIS delivers a level of detail closer to the former than the latter, making it a useful basis for the GlobCover mapping project. Complementary projects include GlobAEROSOL and Globwetland. Release date: 13 March 2006