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GEO-VI Plenary paves the way for mid-term achievements
The Sixth Plenary meeting of the Group on Earth Observations was held in Washington DC from 17 to 18 November. Some 320 delegates from 45 Members and 34 Participating Organizations attended the Plenary and related meetings during the week.
In addition to welcoming Austria, Malta, Guinea and Madagascar as new Members, the Plenary recognized the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) and the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) as Participating Organizations.
Much of the meeting was dedicated to examining the concrete advances that the GEO community has made in building the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). Oral presentations on national and regional activities, Work Plan progress, Committee activities, and three highlighted activities – the global carbon monitoring system, the forest carbon tracking task, and the GEO Biodiversity Observation Network – confirmed the breadth of GEO accomplishments. The GEO-VI Exhibition, boasting over 30 exhibits by governments, organizations, Committees and the private sector, provided further evidence that GEOSS is becoming a reality.
The Plenary also reviewed the key ongoing processes for guiding GEOSS implementation. The Target Task Team (T3) has distilled GEO’s original 241 targets into a smaller, more focused and Minister-friendly set of 14 targets. The weather target was revised by the Plenary and the document was accepted.
The GEOSS Common Infrastructure (GCI) Initial Operating Capability (IOC) Task Force presented eight recommendations for the long-term operation of the GCI. The Plenary accepted six of the recommendations and established a Coordination Team to lead the process forward. This team will start by improving its terms of reference and the GCI recommendations document based on the Plenary discussion and any further written comments. The revised document will then be submitted to, and finalized at, the next meeting of the Executive Committee.
The GEOSS Monitoring & Evaluation Working Group described plans for conducting a full evaluation of GEOSS in 2015, with a mid-term assessment based on the Cape Town Declaration at the Beijing Plenary meeting next year. A number of countries nominated experts to the new Evaluation Team.
The Plenary accepted the Asia/Pacific caucus’s request that GEO increase the size of the Executive Committee to include four countries from that caucus. As a result the Executive Committee now has 13 members. Africa is now represented by Cameroon and South Africa (as GEO Co-Chair); Asia/Oceania is represented by Australia, China (GEO Co-Chair), Japan and Korea; the Americas by Brazil, Chile and the USA (GEO Co-Chair); Europe by the EC (GEO Co-Chair), France and Italy; and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) by Russia.
The Plenary also recognized the following slate of Committee Co-Chairs. The User Interface Committee: EC, France, Germany, US, and IEEE. The Science and Technology Committee: Australia, Germany, Italy, South Africa, UK, US, and COSPAR. The Capacity Building Committee: Brazil, EC, South Africa, Spain, and UNESCO. The Architecture and Data Committee: China, EC, Japan, US, and CEOS, IEEE and WMO. The Monitoring & Evaluation Working Group: Canada and US.
China’s offer to host GEO-VII and the Ministerial Summit from 3-5 November 2010 was accepted by acclamation. Critical to the success of the Ministerial will be the GEO-wide effort led by the 2010 Ministerial Task Force to develop messages and products for the Summit as well as a draft Declaration. The Plenary recognized that the Beijing Ministerial is a vital opportunity for the GEO community to highlight its achievements and to inform and engage Ministers. To get the preparatory process started, the GEO Committees have been invited to propose a limited number of “showcases” that could be presented to the Ministers.
The full draft report of the GEO-VI Plenary meeting will be available shortly.
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GEO-VI Participants |
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