World Environment Day 2026: Monitoring Environmental Change with Copernicus

5 June marks World Environment Day 2026, under the theme “Inspired by Nature. For Climate. For Our Future”, highlighting the important role of nature-based solutions in addressing climate change and supporting sustainable livelihoods for future generations.

Around the world, environmental changes are affecting landscapes, ecosystems, and natural resources, providing visible indicators of environmental pressures. This collage combines three images acquired by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites, illustrating environmental events which significantly affected their respective regions. 

The image on the left shows the severe wildfires which affected Northern Spain in August 2025, burning vast areas of land and causing severe impacts on ecosystems and local communities. The middle image shows the retreat of the icecap of the Svalbard Archipelago on 30 August 2025, at the end of the Arctic summer melting season, illustrating the effects of unusually high temperatures on polar environments. The image on the right depicts drought conditions along the Rio Negro in Brazil in October 2024, during one of the most severe drought episodes recorded in the Amazon Basin. 

Together, these images demonstrate how Copernicus reveals the magnitude and impacts of environmental change, providing important information for climate adaptation, disaster response, and sustainable environmental management.