Washington

The United States is convening an international summit in Washington DC next week to tout plans to consolidate scientific observations of the Earth — and to help repair its reputation as a foot-dragger in global climate change.

Attendees at the meeting on 31 July will be asked to sign a declaration calling for increased sharing of data from instruments on the ground, in the air and in space. The summit will be followed by meetings of a working group to begin developing a ten-year plan for an integrated Earth-observation system, which would help to standardize data from sensors operated by different nations, as well as identify gaps in those data.

Participants will include US secretary of state Colin Powell and half-a-dozen other US cabinet members, along with ministers from most leading industrial nations and representatives of the World Bank and the World Meteorological Organization.

Ray Williamson, an expert on Earth-observation policy at George Washington University in Washington DC, says that some contentious issues could surface at the meeting — such as who would set the requirements for an integrated system. Europeans already have programmes with similar goals, he says. They may also be wary of any US effort to dominate the field.

The United States also faces scepticism from those who suspect that its enthusiasm for collecting more data on climate change is simply “a way of putting off making some hard decisions” on greenhouse gases, Williamson says.

But Anthony Janetos, director of the global-change programme at the Heinz Center, a think-tank in Washington, says that given the difficulties of coordinating large observation programmes, “the reaffirmation of a US commitment to an integrated system is enormously important”.