A year of growth for Space4Climate and the whole UK Earth Observation community
The final challenge for the Space4Climate team in a year of achievements is to narrow down our favourite moments to just five – and OK, we admit, we have cheated a little bit and mentioned a couple of other highlights in passing!
- 2023 opened with a first – setting the tone for the following months. We held the first Space4Climate Members’ Conference in January. Kindly hosted by the fantastic Geovation in London, we brought members together face-to-face for a day of discussions, planning and updates. Thanks to a three-year funding package from the UK Space Agency we were able to launch ‘Mission 2025’, our roadmap to boosting awareness of the UK Earth Observation for climate community in supporting and delivering trusted climate data from space for the benefit of society and the economy. Our pledge was to bring further growth in membership, key relationships, internal and external events and promotion of the UK’s thriving Earth Observation for climate community both nationally and internationally, and to new audiences. We close the year with 62 members (up from 55) and more waiting for their applications to be processed.
Space4Climate 1st Members’ Conference - GLOC – in May we marked another first, attending the first Global Space Conference on Climate Change. Space4Climate joined the UK Space Agency stand to showcase UK climate services, products and decision-support tools, represented by our Climate Services Development Manager, Krupa Nanda Kumar. One of our new videos, recorded at the Members’ Conference ‘Why every country needs a Space4Climate’ was well-received. It was the impact made at GLOC that prompted the United Arab Emirates Space Agency to jointly invite the UK Space Agency and Space4Climate to feature in their dedicated Space Pavilion at COP28. We also enjoyed engaging with audiences at a new event for us, Reset Connect, in London, where Krupa also led a panel discussion ‘Climate Intelligence from Space: how satellite data is providing leading solutions to support your sustainability and Net-Zero journey. Our stand put UK EO data for climate in the spotlight for Net Zero innovators in energy, finance, insurance and more, and we were delighted to be joined by some of our members. Other events we joined included the NCEO Conference and the UK Space Conference
- As part of Mission 2025 we committed to supporting the UK Earth Observation community in expanding awareness of the value of climate data from space for climate action and climate services. In July we launched a new Space4Climate initiative – a funding call to bring together three collaborations to remove at least one key barrier to the take-up of climate services: Space4Climate’s Market Breakthrough Funding. We have been tracking the progress of these projects and we look forward to presenting the resources and actions they are creating that will be freely available to all.
- Breaking out of the space bubble – promoting members’ climate research and innovative climate products, clearly and visually answering the ‘so what?’ question, is a key part of our role. We aim to demonstrate the difference that UK expertise in climate and to do that we seek out new audiences. In 2023 we were delighted to be able to present insightful briefings on UK capabilities in climate data from space, current and upcoming developments and services to the team at PwC and to members of the Civil Service Climate and Environment Network. If you know of an organisation or business that would like a tailored ‘Earth Observation 101’ please email Space4Climate@reading.ac.uk!
- COP28 – our final and most recent highlight of the year and yet another first! With the support of the UK Space Agency we were able to take up the invitation to feature in the first ever COP Space Pavilion, hosted by the UAE Space Agency. With colleagues from the UK Space Agency, three wonderful and enthusiastic COP28 Volunteers and representatives from some of our members, we used the opportunity to meet face-to-face with new, potential and current users of climate data to promote the value of satellite data for climate decisions and actions. So many valuable conversations were had with influential people we would not otherwise have had the opportunity to reach. This has set us up for a busy 2024 of even more growth for the benefit of our members and the whole UK climate data from space community.
Message from Krupa
We close our review of 2023 with this message from our Climate Services Development Manager, Krupa: “2023 has been a pivotal year for Space4Climate and it has been a pleasure to lead the programme upon joining full-time earlier this year. We have seen a meteoric growth in the EO for climate sector in the UK but at the same time we also recognise the existing challenges the sector continues to face. To this we decided to align all our activities to improve the approachability of the sector across other commercial industries, provide resources to address the troublesome challenges in adoption of satellite climate data and work closely with consultancies to further support on this.
“We have welcomed many new members in the last year and participated in impactful activities that have helped profile our member capabilities on both national and international stages. We ended our year on a high with a fantastic showcase representing UK’s satellite EO for climate community at COP28 as part of the first Space Pavilion at a COP.
“Personally, it is always satisfying when we open the eyes of a non-user to the possibilities of satellite climate data applications. It also shows us how much more we need to be doing to make satellite climate data and its applications mainstream. We look forward to accelerating our efforts to support our community and engage other industries in 2024.”
As a team, we don’t recall a year in which we have received so much support and encouragement from Space4Climate members, such active enthusiasm and practical efforts. We look forward to another year of exciting collaborating and wish you all a well-deserved festive break and a prosperous 2024.
Thank you and Happy New Year from the Space4Climate team!