Space agencies develop plan for network of emissions-tracking satellites

New York Times : The space agencies of China, France, India, the US, and several other countries have distributed a draft of a plan that calls for six to eight satellites to map carbon dioxide emissions with enough precision to identify individual nations as the source. The satellite array, which is estimated will cost $5 billion and be in orbit by 2030, would be similar to the network of satellites that monitors cloud cover. The ability to measure the emissions contributions from individual countries would be a major improvement over the current system of self-reported values based on surface readings, economic analyses, and ecological estimates. In the current system, established in 1992, industrialized nations report yearly but developing nations only have to report occasionally. However, in the 2000s, emissions from developing nations surpassed those of industrial nations and currently are estimated to be 60% of the annual global emissions total.