A new space race: satellites could test the world's climate vows
Scientists from the United States, Japan, and China are racing to perfect satellite technology that could one day measure greenhouse gas emissions from space, potentially transforming the winner into the world's first climate cop.
Monitoring a single country's net emissions from above could not only become an important tool to establish whether it had met its promises to slow global warming, a point of contention at climate talks in Paris, but also help emitters to pinpoint the sources of greenhouse gases more quickly and cheaply.
"The real success of a deal here fundamentally revolves around whether we can see emissions and their removals," said John-O Niles, director of the U.S.-based Carbon Institute, which studies methods of carbon dioxide (CO2) measurement.
And how are their satellites going to get into space ?
First off engineers are going to draw up plans using current available resources , then minerals need to be dug out of the ground using current resources ; mining equipment blasting powders , drilling equipment , large trucks and mills to process , then parts need to be shipped to specialized machinists to be milled from the raw state into usable parts , then shipped again to assembly areas , fuel needed to blast the satellites into space will have to be shipped to the launching site .
During the whole process fossil fuels will be used thus emitted greenhouse gases , the very gases these satellites will be looking for .