The International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) unveiled its Digital Earth Initiative for Climate Governance and Regenerative Economics at COP30 in Belém, Brazil.

ISDE’s vision is to develop a functioning global architecture for sustainable development as a ‘digital twin of the planet’ that makes the Earth’s processes ‘observable, measurable and governable in real time’.

Through twelve interconnected thematic frameworks, ISDE says the initiative would unite geospatial intelligence, predictive modelling, and ethical data governance to help nations monitor emissions, track climate commitments, and align investment with verifiable outcomes.

“The world is entering a decisive decade,” said Richard Simpson, President of the ISDE.

“COP30 marks a turning point for collective ambition, transparency, and cooperation.

“The Digital Earth vision provides a shared foundation for understanding our planet as an interconnected whole that links science, policy, and finance in the service of regeneration and resilience.

“It offers a trusted framework through which every commitment can be understood, every outcome verified, and every investment aligned with the health of the Earth itself.”

By integrating geospatial analytics with climate-finance pathways and national reporting systems under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the initiative would help governments align investment, adaptation, and accountability within a single transparent framework for planetary stewardship.

According to ISDE, the Digital Earth vision supports the COP30 agenda through:

• Transparency: Federated digital architectures and open-data protocols enable traceable, verifiable climate reporting.
• Ambition: Interactive Decision Theatres help policymakers building greater situational awareness and test integrated pathways for adaptation, mitigation, and finance.
• Resilience: Federated high-resolution models support anticipatory responses to climate and ecological risks.
• Equity: Adoption of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, Ethics) principles ensures that developing nations and Indigenous communities shape and benefit from digital cooperation.
• Economic Transformation: By linking geospatial data to financial markets, Digital Earth helps internalise the full costs of carbon and align incentives with planetary stability.

ISDE announced a program of four co-ordinated actions to accelerate delivery:

• A Global Value Exchange Forum (Q1 2026) that will convene ministries of finance, central banks, multilateral development banks, and standards bodies to explore how a Digital Earth infrastructure can support transparent, high-integrity climate finance, carbon accounting, and systemic risk management.
• Two Regional Trust and Compliance Pilots (Q2–Q3 2026) to showcase how Digital Earth provenance and consent systems can strengthen accountability and public confidence in climate reporting.
• Exploration of a Digital Earth Carbon Incentive Protocol (Q4 2026), under which ISDE will undertake a scoping study to assess the feasibility of sovereign or regional incentive mechanisms grounded in verified environmental performance.
• And a Digital Earth Value Exchange Reference Architecture (Q1 2027), through which ISDE will publish a comprehensive reference architecture for providing a practical ‘data-to-value’ blueprint for converting climate and sustainability data flows into trusted financial value streams.

“Digital Earth is a step change in how humanity can understand and govern our shared risks and shared futures,” said Simpson.

“It invites governments, institutions, and citizens everywhere to help shape a common planetary framework that transforms knowledge into care, and global cooperation into lasting stewardship of the Earth.”

The ISDE 2026 Summit will be held in Melbourne in November 2026, back-to-back with the annual LOCATE conference and exhibition.