The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, the Government of Austria and the European Space Agency (ESA) are jointly organizing the second series of three consecutive symposia to promote activities to carry out the Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002. The first symposium, in the current series of symposia, will address the benefits provided by space technologies for monitoring air pollution and energy production and use for sustainable development. Further symposia of the current series may explore the possibilities to develop and implement pilot projects in this area, and address the issues related to policy development in order to make operational the successful space applications for monitoring air pollution and energy use.
The Symposium will be hosted and co-sponsored by the Government of Austria (Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology), the State of Styria and the City of Graz. It will also be co-sponsored by ESA. This will be the thirteenth in a series of symposia organized through the United Nations Programme on Space Applications in cooperation with these co-sponsors since 1994.