Canada

Statement of CANADA

Canada is pleased to be participating in the GEO Week 2023 and Ministerial Summit in Cape Town, South Africa.  As a member of GEO’s global network of experts and leaders, we continue to support the use of Earth Observation (EO) to contribute to informed decision-making.  In this regard, we look forward to strengthening our existing partnerships and building new collaborations to advance common regional and global EO goals to help advance national policy and international multilateral agreements that prioritize a sustainable and healthy planet for all.

Many GEO initiatives work towards increasing the sustainable access and use of EO to protect our global interests in land, water, and ecosystems. One of GEO’s leading flagship initiatives, GEO BON, plays an influential science and data role in advancing global biodiversity policy by leveraging its network of international experts, contributing to the monitoring objectives of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF) (Convention of the Parties (COP) Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) decision 15/5) and strengthening its endorsed partnership with the CBD. GEO BON is co-chaired and hosted in Canada with leadership from the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science and McGill University. This relationship strategically builds on Canada’s national biodiversity goals and Canada’s interests to protect its ecosystems.  In August 2023, the Government of Canada announced an investment of $200 million CAD in the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund to help address biodiversity loss as well as an additional $22.8 million CAD for the Global Environment Facility Assembly Eighth Replenishment to further support efforts to tackle the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. 

This year, GEO BON successfully hosted the GEO BON global conference in Montreal, Canada from October 10^th to 13^th with an international attendance of more than 700 experts from more than 41 countries. Strong leadership was showcased at the event with talks given by the Secretariat of the CBD and Environment Climate Change Canada’s (ECCC) Assistant Deputy Minister of Science and Technology.  Major scientific developments and breakthroughs in biodiversity monitoring were presented. The outcomes from the conference focused on strengthening the network among different stakeholder communities including the public and private sector, Indigenous communities and citizen groups; all of which advanced actions towards mobilizing the knowledge urgently needed to realize the goals of the KM-GBF.

Canada’s engagement in GEO as well as among other international communities such as Committee of Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites (CGMS), the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UNGGIM)) are supported by national coordination efforts and are well aligned with the guiding principles that support the domestic implementation of the Canada’s 2022 Satellite EO (SEO) Strategy. The national SEO strategy aims to advance the capacity for Canadians to use and analyze SEO data to better inform decision-making within a growing international SEO sector.  To deliver on the strategy, Canada established a national SEO Office, which helps facilitate coordination across the Government of Canada and engagement with public, private, and academic stakeholders to help shape Canada’s path forward. In November 2023, Canada will assume the leadership as chair of CEOS, providing an opportunity to strengthen collaboration with members of the GEO community.

Some of the recent Canadian SEO and EO achievements and actions that will help advance capacity to leverage data and inform decision-making are listed below:

RADARSAT     In October 2023, Government of Canada announced over $ 1 billion CAD investment to support a satellite replacement for RCM and the design phase for a next-generation satellite system to succeed the RCM.  This funding will ensure the continuity of essential EO satellite data will be made available to Canadian government to continue delivering services to Canadians.

RADARSAT Constellation Mission Data Access - In addition to Canada’s existing Radarsat-1 data archives, public access to RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) imagery was expanded to include access to moderate resolution data (greater than or equal to 16 m spatial resolution) over land. This represents a substantial increase in the volume of RCM data that is openly available to the public. The RCM captured its one millionth image of Earth on March 30, 2023, an accomplishment that attests to the importance and growing use of SEO data, including to study and protect our planet and adapt to climate change.

SCISAT - Launched in 2003, this Canadian-led mission has provided over 20 years of datasets that are free and openly available, contributing to accurate global monitoring efforts, improved climate and air quality models, ozone recovery, and Polar studies from researchers around the world. In October 2023, a three-day international event brought together a large and diverse group of government, industry and academic experts working at the forefront of satellite measurements, atmospheric chemistry and science, as well as leaders in climate research and decision-makers.  This event marked SCISAT achievements over the past 20 years and encouraged future collaborations and progress towards new and planned atmosphere observing satellites.

SWOT Launch - The French Space Agency (CNES) in collaboration with NASA, with contributions from both the Canadian Space Agency (CSA)  and the UK Space Agency (UKSA), launched the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission in December 2022. Canada contributed a key component of the wide-swath radar instrument. Operating since July 21, 2023, SWOT will acquire data from 90% of the Earth's surface water to help better understand the dynamics of the world's water resources and help address important issues such as climate change and water management.

WildFireSat - Canada is proud to be working towards the launch of its WildFireSat mission, which will strengthen our ability to monitor and manage wildfires.  The mission will use new state-of-the-art approaches to deliver detailed intelligence on wildfires directly to fire managers at the time of day when there is the highest potential fire activity, and within 30 minutes of observation from space. WildFireSat is purpose-built with Canadian wildfire managers. While the primary goal of WildFireSat is to support wildfire management, it will also provide Canadians with more precise information on smoke, air quality conditions and carbon emitted by wildfires.

“Early Warnings for All”(EW4All) – The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is co-leading the United Nation’s Secretary General’s “Early Warnings for All”(EW4All) initiative along with the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.  EW4All aims to ensure everyone on Earth is covered by early warning systems by the end of 2027 to help protect people and their properties from hazardous weather, water and climate events. To date, Canada through the leadership of ECCC’s Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) is providing a 4-year $10M CAD grant to the international Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems initiative to advance this effort, sharing expertise and promoting the critical role of EO role in early warning systems.  In September 2022, Canada also announced a one-time grant of $1 million CAD to the Systematic Observations Financing Facility, which will help countries close the weather and climate data gaps prioritizing Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States, leading to improved local and global predictions and warnings to save lives and property.

In addition to these national highlights, Canada continues to collaborate on several GEO initiatives such as GEO BON, where government, academic and industry experts share their knowledge and best practices:

GOS4M – The co-chairmanship role for GEO’s Observation System for Mercury (GOS⁴M) flagship is led by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) who provide expertise to advance the development of a centralized open data access network to increase global mercury monitoring capacity. Outcomes help to inform several international environmental agreements such as the Minamata Convention on Mercury.

GEOGLAM - Agriculture and Agri-Foods Canada (AAFC) continues to contribute strong leadership and financial support to the GEO Global Agricultural Monitoring initiative (GEOGLAM), and GEOGLAM’s Joint Experiment for Crop Assessment and Monitoring (JECAM) network. Canada advances capacity development in SEO-based monitoring of agricultural production systems and leverages international best practices for its own national operational methods.

EO4EA –Statistics Canada (StatCan) continues to lead a national ‘Census of Environment’ program, with the aim of measuring and reporting societal benefits drawn from ecosystem services, and the capacity of ecosystems to generate these services sustainably over time. These efforts are reliant on Ecosystem Accounting ready EO data fit for measuring, monitoring, and reporting on the state and condition of Canada’s ecosystems. Canada has been an important contributor to GEO’s EO4EA in recent years and continues to look for engagement to advance common goals.

GWIS - Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) shares its fire management expertise by contributing to GEO’s Global Observation of Forest and Land Cover Dynamics (GOFC-GOLD) Fire Implementation Team (IT), which supports the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS) for better global understanding of operational wildfire management. Canada is hosting the 2023 GWIS/GOFC-GOLD Fire IT annual meeting on November 14-15.

GEO Climate Change Working Group – ECCC continues to contribute to GEO’s Climate Change Working Group by supporting international efforts in advancing EO for climate change monitoring and mitigation by emphasizing GEO’s role, expertise and potential value for the international community.

GEOValue The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) continues to contribute to a variety of initiatives relating to best practices in valuation and regularly participates in research discussions with the wider GEOValue group, as well as specialized subgroups.

GEO Health Community of Practice– ECCC and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) work with international colleagues to explore how EO can contribute to improved understanding, monitoring, and response to health-related risks, while building collaboration opportunities between the EO and the health communities. ECCC’s contributions focus on heat and air quality, while PHAC focuses on vector-borne diseases.

GEO AquaWatch – Canada’s ongoing involvement in AquaWatch contributes to increasing the global use of water quality data for decision-making.  Canada provides guidance in the development of EO water quality products to support monitoring capabilities and improve global water resources management. Canada will be presenting on EO needs for water quality forecasting at the GEO AquaWatch Bienniel meeting this November 2023 in St. Petersburg, Florida

GEO Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) - AAFC continues to co-chair GEO’s Disaster Risk Working Group (GEO DDR WG) and lead a sub-group to support the Sendai framework by exploring EO’s integration in national disaster management frameworks.

LACI - Within the GEO DDR WG, Carleton University is co-leading a pilot project with Jamaican partners to modernize Jamaica’s approach to disaster risk reduction and prepare communities for climate resilience. This pilot is one of several projects being implemented under the Enhancing Capacity for Climate Risk Assessment and Catalyzing Partnerships to Inform Decisions in Latin America and the Caribbean (LACI) initiative supported by AmeriGEO and partners.  Best practices from this collaborative initiative are anticipated to be shared with other Caribbean nations to support their national disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation efforts.

AmeriGEO – Canada continues to contribute to the AmeriGEO community through its involvement in the coordination working group and participation at the annual AmeriGEO Week to help advance common regional goals.

Canada also continues to contribute to the GEO Programme Board and provides leadership through Canada’s GEO Principal, who is actively involved in senior level AmeriGEO and GEO meetings to advance EO initiatives aligned with Canada’s EO international partnerships, national SEO strategy, and growing the national GEO community involvement. Canada continues to advocate and support increased use of EO, and strengthen cross-linkages between government, industry, academia, and Indigenous communities. Our goals are in alignment with the GEO community and our expertise is shared through international collaboration.  As GEO looks forward to the years ahead, the agility of the Post 2025 strategy implementation will be important to ensure existing partnerships are strengthened, new collaborations are inclusive and diverse, and strategic plans are built on GEO successes while addressing the needs of tomorrow.