ABOUT WMO AT COP26

Wet and dry deposition of atmospheric pollutants can have detrimental impacts on sensitive ecosystems, rivers, lakes and oceans and can also reduce crop yields. The international community is developing tools to provide globally consistent maps of ozone, sulphur and nitrogen deposition for evaluating the risks to agriculture and ecosystems. The concept of global system, deposition impacts and implications for the ocean management will be presented.

This high-level event will launch and showcase the climate science knowledge products (information platform, tools and guidance) developed under the Climate Science Information for Climate Action joint collaboration.

The technical side event will provide participants the opportunity to learn about the applicability and use of various climate science knowledge products for sectoral adaptation planning and for developing climate finance proposals, from a range of international and national experts.

Innovating finance for weather and climate observations
At this high-level event, WMO, UNEP, and UNDP will announce the creation of the Systematic Observations Finance Facility (SOFF) as a UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund.

SOFF provides the foundations for an effective international response to climate change. It will fill critical data gaps from the most vulnerable countries that undermine efforts to build climate resilience across the globe.

The event will start with opening remarks from the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, will include live interventions from the Prime Ministers of beneficiary countries, Ministers and senior representative of funding partners as well as representatives of the Alliance for Hydromet Development. It will end with closing remarks by Selwin Hart, Selwin Hart, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Climate Action and Assistant Secretary-General for the Climate Action Team.

The responses to the COVID-19 pandemic halted nearly all the industrial, business and transportation sectors worldwide, with immediate, unintended effects on different environmental reservoirs, including the atmosphere. Although the large body of scientific studies that emerged in the wake of the pandemic proved that good air quality is not far-fetched, it also highlighted the remaining challenges demonstrating that some results are elusive and conflicting. This side event discusses the strategies that have emerged from these studies and unmasks why reducing the emission of the burning of fossil fuels –as widely advocated– may curtail but not completely eradicate the exposure to air pollution and puts this in the context of the future health impacts considering connection between pollution and climate changes.

Accelerating growth of urban populations has become a driving force of human development, especially in developing countries with expected urban population reaching 66% by 2050. Increasingly dense, complex and interdependent urban fabrics are rendering cities vulnerable. A single extreme event can lead to a widespread breakdown of a city’s infrastructure, often through cascading downstream or “domino” effect. Integrated Urban Services have multiple benefits for the cities. By combining weather, climate, environmental and hydrological forecasting, the decision makers receive more comprehensive information and optimize the investment in the underlying infrastructure.

Long-term measurements of Earth’s atmosphere show rapidly rising concentrations of greenhouse gases linked to human activities. Existing observing networks provide information on greenhouse gas emissions at the global scale, but alone are not sufficient to target, quantify and manage greenhouse gas emissions where they occur and can be controlled. Atmospheric measurement-based emission estimates developed within the framework of the WMO Integrated Global Greenhouse Gas Information System support the diversity of user needs. Examples to be presented follow established international standards and cover scales from facility to urban to national.

This event provides an overview of the World Meteorological Organization’s Hydrological Status and Outlook System (HydroSOS): A system for monitoring and predicting global freshwater hydrological conditions. HydroSOS provides a platform for assessing the current hydrological availability and providing outlooks under changing climate. Water status and outlook systems are key components of evidence-based decision-making regarding climate change adaptation. The event will feature an outline of the HydroSOS concept, progress in the project so far which includes the technical developments done during the pilot phase, and a presentation on the challenges and opportunities associated with global implementation.

The event presents findings from the GFCS “2021 State of Climate Services: Water” report and explores the progress made by WMO Members in using climate services to address water-related challenges through real-world examples.

WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas and UN-Water Chair Gilbert Houngbo invited water and climate leaders to set and pursue an integrated global water and climate agenda in support of sustainable development and national mitigation and adaptation actions.

The launch event of the State of the Climate in the South-West Pacific in 2020 report will bring together
international and regional scientific organizations and operational offices, policy- and decision-makers,
development partners, National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and climate negotiators. The
stakeholders will reflect on the need for urgent climate action in the South-West Pacific and play a pivotal role in
the coordination and implementation of weather, water and climate-related strategic frameworks in the South-
West Pacific. They will work to ensure effective and coherent development and delivery of adequate, sciencebased
and sector-specific weather, water, and climate services for socio-economic development.

A new Global Methane Pledge announced at the United Nations Climate Change negotiations COP26 represents the first major international push to reduce emissions of a powerful but short-lived greenhouse gas.

It is vital to scale up woefully inadequate adaptation funding for countries on the front-line of climate change. The tools and know-how are there – now we need the political will and  financial clout to make this possible, according to speakers at a high-level UN-wide event at COP26 on 8 November.

Countries contributing to the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) Initiative have announced commitments for new investments of US$ 20 million for early warnings systems in Africa, and additional financing for the Caribbean region. The initiative has been widely lauded as a success story in terms of building resilience to extreme weather and saving lives and livelihoods.

Young climate leaders came together with negotiators, officials and ministers from across the world at COP26 on 5 November, demanding that their voices be heardYouth at COP26 and translated into the action needed to prevent catastrophic climate change in our lifetimes.

The 10 New Insights in Climate Science, a synthesis of the most robust climate-related research findings available today, has been released by the WMO co-sponsored World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), Future Earth and the Earth League.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) have joined together to provide the international community with new climate information and tools on the latest climate science data. This can be used to inform decisions on climate change investments, particularly for adaptation.

On Finance Day at COP26, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) announced the creation of the Systematic Observations Finance Facility (SOFF).

Climate change is exacerbating both water scarcity and water-related hazards, as rising temperatures disrupt precipitation patterns and the entire water cycle. Currently, 3.6 billion people face inadequate access to water at least a month per year and this is expected to increase to more than 5 billion by 2050.

Record atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and associated accumulated heat have propelled the planet into uncharted territory, with far-reaching repercussions for current and future generations, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is supporting the United Nations Climate Change conference (COP26) with scientific information about the state of the climate and greenhouse gas concentrations. During COP26 it will also launch major initiatives to support climate change adaptation.

Extraordinary Congress approves vision and action plan for hydrology

Hydrological dataThe Extraordinary World Meteorological Congress has endorsed a Water Declaration, including the Water and Climate Coalition, to accelerate implementation of SDG 6, and approved a new vision and strategy for hydrology and an associated plan of action.

Science Pavilion at COP26 to be run by Met Office, IPCC and WMO.

The head of the World Meteorological Organization and nine other international organizations have issued a united and…

The World Meteorological Organization has convened a special session of its Congress in order to strengthen policies…

As the impacts of a warming climate become more evident, there is an ever-increasing demand for more detailed information on climate change, both to explain and project changes and to help planning and implementing adaptation and mitigation.