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2025: a solid and radiant year for the SCO

Published on 05/01/2026
As the Paris Agreement celebrates its tenth anniversary, the SCO can look back with pride on its achievements: it has fulfilled its commitments and more. By consolidating its unifying role on the international stage and producing new formats for exchange, it has made 2025 a year of openness to all audiences.

Six years on, with results exceeding expectations, the SCO proves that unity is strength: through dialogue, through complementary knowledge and skills, through sharing and, of course, through satellite data!

👉 (Re)Discover the Portrait of SCO in 2025, a look at SCO's successful transition from its initial ambitions to its current successes.

Governance and climate diplomacy

As it does every year, the SCO maintained a strong presence at major international events, including China Space Day, UNOC, and the ESA Living Planet Symposium.

As a highlight, the 3rd SCO France Congress brought together high-level speakers to support cooperation and multilateralism.

In the last major event of the year, three companies signed the SCO Charter following a due diligence process supervised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

🤝 Strengthening SCO/GEO collaboration

The SCO and the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) are stepping up their joint efforts to mobilize international climate action, as exemplified in 2025 by the GEO Global Forum, the AfriGEO Symposium and the EuroGEO Workshop. Also noteworthy in 2025 is the opening of the GEO Knowledge Hub Market Place,which already features six services that have been commercialized following SCO support.

61 signatories to the SCO Charter (+11 in 2025)

2 Steering Committees and 4 Programme Committees per year

Applications: more and more tools and projects

Following its annual call for projects, in 2025 the SCO approved 28 projects, including 12 international projectsand 16 by SCO France. From a thematic perspective, forest conservation and adaptation to extreme events remain key priorities, particularly in coastal areas. Air quality and carbon storage are also key themes for 2025. On the website, the Toolbox has been expanded with more than fifteen applications and demonstrators in 2025.

122 projects implemented in 51 countries

48 operational solutions and demonstrators available in the Toolbox

 

► 3 main themes of SCO projects implemented on each continent, highlighting the key adaptation priorities. © SCO

Planisphere SCO  2025

Promotion and awareness

💬 It is essential to enable SCO projects to exchange ideas, create synergies and showcase their adaptation solutions to potential users. To this end, SCO France has created the Quarterly meetings of projects, four annual webinars open to all. The formula proved successful, and in 2025 the format was adapted internationally with ClimateSCOpes. Focusing on current issues (Oceans and Forests in 2025), these are organized by the SCO's Global Awareness working group, led by UNOOSA.
👉 All replays of the Quarterly Projects and ClimateSCOpes are available online.

📢 Communication in the broadest sense is just as necessary, and in 2025 the SCO adopted three new formats:

  • 🎥 For stakeholders seeking solutions: the production of thematic videos giving a voice to creators but also, and above all, to project users, with:
  • 🎮 For the general public: the creation of the Fortnite adventure "Amazonia, space to the rescue"
  • 🎤 For the economic sphere: in order to highlight the role of businesses in responding to the climate crisis, SCO France has partnered with the television channel B SMART 4Change to create a new series of interviews called "Space solutions" on the Smart Space programme.

💡 Two projects certified by SCO in 2025 focus on raising global awareness of the impacts of climate change by developing global mapping platforms powered by satellite data: Environmental Hotspots, led by UNEP, and ERA Explorer, implemented by ECMWF as part of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

Outlook for 2026

In 2026, the SCO will maintain its momentum with, in particular:

  • A new batch of projects, announced in spring 2026.
  • An update to the SCO Portfolio, a booklet listing all certified projects.
  • Increased and ever more committed participation in major international events, including GLOC 26.
  • An 8th call for projects in September 2026.
  • And, of course, new operational tools!

Added to this are the commitments of the 2025-2027 Work Programme adopted by the international steering committee on 20 November 2025, namely:

  • Signing of the Charter by new public and private members.
  • Strengthening ties with signatories to increase the international impact of the SCO.
  • Intensification of communication within the framework of the Global Awareness Working Group.
  • Consolidation of existing partnerships (GEO, Expertise France, etc.).
  • Promotion of international project success stories.
  • Improving the visibility of the SCO in the context of international commitments.

👏 Congratulations once again and a huge thank you to the entire SCO community, who work hard every day to prepare for the world of tomorrow. We wish you a wonderful 2026.

 

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