Brown's climate efforts are turning to space

But Friday, Governor Moonbeam fought back. Brown concluded that his climate change summit promised that the state would send its own satellite into orbit to track the formation of pollutants causing climate change.

The announcement was the boldest of dozens of promises made by politicians and business leaders at a conference that sent a clear signal to the world: either take the turn of the fast transition or be left behind .

"We are attacked by many people, including Donald Trump, but the climate threat is growing," Brown said, concluding the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. "So we want to know what's going on, all over the world, all the time, so we're going to launch our own satellite, our own satellite, to find out where the pollution is and how are we going to stop it."

A statement from his office said the initiative will "identify – and stop – destructive emissions … on a scale that has never been reached before."

There was obvious evidence of this unprecedented gathering of local, state, and foreign government leaders as well as the private sector, that they would not let Washington hinder their plans. Participants made it clear that they intended to lead the world towards achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement – which President Donald Trump has disavowed – even if it means that states must launch their own space programs.

This historic summit also aimed to draw the attention of public and private sector leaders to the fight against climate change, warning them that they could face more immediate consequences than a warmer planet in the next few decades. They also risk short-term, economic and environmental stagnation.

The governor's summit – and Trump's reluctance to conduct climate research – allowed Brown to release a version of his satellite idea from the archives and announce what would be the first space launch in California.

The state will develop the satellite with Planet Labs' land-based imaging company in San Francisco, founded by scientists from the former NASA in 2010. California could launch several satellites into space, according to the governor's office. The California Air Resources Board is developing the monitoring technology used by the satellite. No dates have been set for the launch, but it will probably take several years.

Board officials discussed the possibility of the satellite at their July meeting, where they expressed concern that the Trump administration had initiated plans to use innovative technology to monitor pollutants in the city. space.

Robbie Schingler, co-founder of Planet Labs, said the project will inform "how advanced satellite technology can improve our ability to measure, monitor and, ultimately, mitigate the impacts of climate change."

The state hopes to use the satellite to locate sources of climate pollutants, which will enable it to refine its regulatory approach and better understand how to deal with global warming. The satellite data would be made available to the public through a partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund, which launches its own pollution monitoring satellite in 2021. The non-profit spacecraft will focus exclusively on monitoring emissions from methane from 80% of the world's oil and gas production facilities.

"We have to see who emits how much greenhouse gases," said Fred Krupp, chairman of the Environmental Defense Fund, during a summit interview. "Having an eye in the sky allows us to know who releases how much."

He said that space technology offers new methods for determining whether companies are complying with environmental laws and meeting their commitments to reduce emissions.

"These technologies that make monitoring cheaper are stimulating environmental efforts," said Krupp. "It gives us hope."

The more aggressive engagement of technology on all fronts of climate action was a major theme of the summit. In the case of the satellite project, it is a larger international effort to exchange data that officials hope can lead to the elimination of greenhouse gases equivalent to the fact that 200 million vehicles each produce year.

The California satellite project will be funded by donors including Dee and Richard Lawrence and the Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust. The state is recruiting more partners.

The space age commitment was the brightest of the three-day summit, but it was only one of the dozens of climate promises made by cities, states and cities. participating companies.

Commitments are accompanied by a tremendous acceleration of the global economy, which is expanding to encompass everything from the cars we drive to the food we eat and the buildings we inhabit.

"Our world is at the beginning of a sustainable revolution," said Friday former Vice President Al Gore. "It has the scale of the industrial revolution and the speed of the digital revolution."

Plans have been put in place to install 3.5 million additional electric vehicle chargers worldwide over the next seven years. There is currently less than half a million.

California will impose emissions targets on the car pool and autonomous vehicles industries, accelerating the production of electric cars.

The state of Minnesota, which relies heavily on coal energy, is one of many states and cities in the world that have joined a coalition that has promised to free coal in the near future.

Walmart and Unilever have made significant commitments to forest sustainability. McDonald's is one of about 500 companies that are currently working with a non-profit organization to reduce the carbon footprint of everything it does – from beef production to packaging – to meet the goals. from Paris.

The summit showed that the fastest-growing states in the US are already seeing stronger economic growth than the Trump administration – a clear counterpoint to the White House.

"The states of the American Climate Alliance have experienced greater economic growth than this group," said US governor Jay Inslee, a member of the group of 17 governors. Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris deal.

Alliance members, however, pledge to meet the emissions reduction targets of the international agreement.

"If we were a separate nation, we would be the third largest economy in the world," Inslee said.

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