[Draft] LiDAR in space for global forest measurements
For decades, humanity has attempted to manage the planet’s most critical systems using estimates, proxies, and models. This approach was understandable when direct measurement at scale was impossible. It is no longer sufficient.
Across climate mitigation, adaptation, natural-resource management, disaster response, and national security, the limiting factor is not ambition or capital - it is ground truth. Without persistent, objective, three-dimensional measurement, uncertainty compounds, incentives misalign, and trust erodes.
Space-based LiDAR changes this equation. For the first time, it is possible to directly and repeatedly measure the structure of the Earth’s surface and biosphere at global scale. Forests can be quantified rather than inferred. Terrain change can be observed rather than assumed. Risk can be priced on evidence rather than averages.
This shift matters because the world is already moving from intent-based commitments to outcome-based accountability. Carbon markets, biodiversity frameworks, insurance, infrastructure planning, and sovereign risk models increasingly depend on verification rather than declarations. Systems built on estimation cannot support this transition. Systems built on measurement can.
Recent political developments underscore this reality rather than contradict it. The withdrawal of major nations from multilateral climate institutions does not halt physical change, nor does it remove financial exposure to that change. Instead, it accelerates a shift already underway: from coordinated promises to decentralised, evidence-driven decision-making.
In a fragmented geopolitical landscape, trust in shared declarations diminishes. What replaces it is not inaction, but verification. Insurers still need to price risk. Corporations still need to manage assets and supply chains. Governments still need to plan infrastructure, respond to disasters, and protect national interests. Capital still flows, but it flows toward systems that reduce uncertainty.
Crucially, the demand for objective measurement does not arise from climate policy alone. It arises from balance sheets, resilience planning, security considerations, and fiduciary responsibility. These drivers persist regardless of electoral cycles or institutional participation. In many cases, they intensify when coordination breaks down.
The convergence that makes this possible is recent and decisive. Launch costs have fallen by an order of magnitude. LiDAR sensors have matured. Edge computing now allows raw measurements to be transformed into decision-grade information in near-real time. At the same time, climate and security risks are no longer distant projections. They are present-day operational and financial realities.
The result is an inflection point. Measurement is becoming infrastructure.
Space-based LiDAR is therefore not contingent on global consensus. It is a response to its absence. The question is no longer whether it will be deployed at scale, but how quickly, and by whom. Early participants will help define standards, markets, and applications. Late adopters will inherit them.
This white paper sets out a path toward that measured future. The next step is not further modelling, but deployment: partnerships, pilot programmes, and early adoption that turn capability into capacity.
The era of managing the planet by consensus and approximation is ending.
The era of managing it by independent measurement has begun.