The Intelligence Community monitors compliance with environmental treaties, such as the [Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Stratospheric Ozone Layer] and the [London Convention] that regulates the dumping at sea of radioactive and other wastes. Further, intelligence support should begin with the negotiation process, so that diplomats have the benefit of the best available information in framing effective and enforceable treaties in the future.
Environmental intelligence is also a support to economic policymakers. They need to know, for example, whether or not foreign competitors are gaining a competitive advantage over their own businesses by ignoring environmental regulations.
Intelligence can provide valuable information. Imagery from the earliest intelligence satellites, launched long before commercial systems, can show scientists how desert boundaries, vegetation, and polar ice have changed over time. These historical images, which have now been declassified, provide valuable indicators of regional and global climate change.