As NASA's budget shrinks, Europe doubles down on Earth science: 'Climate change is the defining challenge of our generation'

Photographs from the ESA Living Planet Symposium 2025, Vienna, Austria.

As climate extremes intensify and global tipping points loom, Earth science has never been more vital — but not everyone is treating it that way.

In the United States, NASA's science programs are facing historic funding cuts. A new proposed federal budget slashes the agency's Earth science division by nearly half and downsizes its workforce by a third.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the European Space Agency (ESA) is taking the opposite approach. At the Living Planet Symposium 2025, held in Vienna, Austria, ESA leadership showcased the agency's ambitious forward-looking vision for Earth observation, one that extends not just to the next fiscal cycle but decades into the future.