Europe space chief warns over political wavering on climate

A satellite image, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite mission, shows a wildfire that broke out on August 5 south of Odemira in the Alentejo region in southern Portugal, as seen on August 7, 2023. 

Europe's top space official has urged wavering politicians not to abandon European leadership in combating climate change, saying record heatwaves and vegetation fires provide "really alarming" evidence of the pace of global warming.

"It is clear that climate change is very visible and is really causing enormous changes to our planet," said Josef Aschbacher, director general of the European Space Agency and a leading expert on environmental observation.