Next month, leaders from 193 countries will meet in Copenhagen to participate in the United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP-15). There’s a lot of attention on this year’s meeting as participants work to craft an ambitious global climate agreement that will begin in 2012 when the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol expires. Whether there is enough support to bring about a binding agreement at COP-15 is doubtful, however. Recent statements from the United States and elsewhere indicate there are still too many questions yet to be resolved. Even so, many see the conference as an ideal place to tackle the issues of “burden sharing” and related concerns so that an agreement can be signed in 2010, if not 2009.

So what has this got to do with a geospatial blog? Quite a lot, actually. A quick visit to the “Methods & Science” section of the UN Conference on Climate Change website shows several areas where remote sensing technologies will play an important role in the developing carbon market. Most notable is REDD, short for “reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries”. We’ve written about REDD before on this blog, and we’ll be paying more attention to it in the coming weeks as we begin a three-part series on climate change leading up to COP-15.

Topics in our series will include geospatial capabilities for carbon monitoring, with an emphasis on radar; legislation that will impact climate change policy both in the United States and abroad; and the push for REDD approval.

We hope you’ll log on and contribute to the discussion, which will be facilitated by GeoSAR Client Program Manager, Caroline Tyra, our resident expert in all things carbon. If there is a climate change topic not mentioned here, that you’d like us to address, let us know and we’ll be sure to tackle it.