Recent
events
Executive
Council—57th
session
The 57th session of the Executive Council met at WMO
Headquarters in Geneva from 21 June to 1 July under the
chairmanship of the President, Dr A. Bedrisky (Russian
Federation). It agreed on institutional and substantive
actions aimed at increasing the Organization’s
responsiveness to societal needs through enhanced
applications of forecasts and science in the areas of
weather, climate and water.
With the objective of
improving governance and productivity, the WMO Executive
Council, at the outset, adopted a radically new operational
mode, changing the format of its discussions which took
place in plenary only and streamlining procedures whereby
the focus was placed on action-oriented parts of documents.
The Secretary-General of WMO, Mr Michel Jarraud, stated that
this new style had facilitated more rapid, well-informed
decision taking, while enhancing also a more integrated
approach to strategic needs for the implementation of the
WMO Long-term Plan (2004-2007). The Council welcomed the
forward-looking, cross-cutting approach geared towards
increased interaction among WMO programmes and activities.
It expressed satisfaction about the improvement in the
management culture of the Organization in the context of the
ongoing overall reform process, with the emphasis being
placed on integrity, transparency and efficiency.
The Council called for
close cooperation of WMO with other international
organizations in the implementation of international
strategies and Plans of Action, including the Mauritius
Strategy for
the sustainable development of small
Small Island Developing States,
the Hyogo Declaration for disaster reduction and the UN
Millennium Declaration.
It
also approved the participation of WMO in the International
Flood Initiative, a multidisciplinary effort aimed at
promoting an integrated approach to flood management, in
which the WMO will cooperate with partners such as UNESCO,
the United Nations University and the International
Association of Hydrological Sciences.
Focus on
Least Developed Countries
Actions agreed upon by
the Council should help developing countries, in particular
the least developed among them (LDCs), raise the level of
services in meteorology and hydrology, notably through
capacity-building. The Council called upon Members to
assist LDCs to be able to provide a minimum set of
products and services to their respective government and
users. Efforts will be made to help the National
Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) of those
countries maintain and develop observing systems, as well as
to enable them to benefit fully from the latest advances in
numerical weather prediction. For instance, the WMO
Demonstration Project on Severe Weather Forecasting will be
strengthened to ensure that developing countries will
benefit as soon as possible in building
capacity in early warning from the use of improved
and specialized forecast products.
Action
towards a multi-hazard prevention and mitigation strategy
The Council emphasized
that WMO’s core technical and scientific capabilities should be optimally integrated into disaster risk
reduction strategies at the international, regional and
national levels. As an immediate step, WMO will carry out,
within a “multi-hazard” framework,
a comprehensive survey and mapping of
regional and national capabilities, factoring in the
requirements of the disaster
disaster risk-management community. Furthermore, WMO will work
on strengthening contributions by NMHSs to hydrometeorological
risk assessment at the national level. WMOis firmly committed to participate in key international
endeavours, including: the Global Survey of the Early Warning Systems
requested by the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, in his
report to the General Assembly in
“Larger freedom: towards development, security and human
rights for all,” (A/59/2005, 21 March 2005); and the International Early Warning Conference III,
which will be hosted by Germany in March 2006.
The Council supported
WMO’s contributions to the establishment of the Tsunami
Warning System in the Indian Ocean, which is being developed
jointly with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
of UNESCO,
the UN Secretariat of the International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction and other international and regional
agencies. The WMO Global Telecommunication System (GTS),
which interconnects all NMHSs, is being upgraded to address
information exchange needs for tsunami in the Indian Ocean.
The GTS is currently utilized for data collection and
dissemination in the Pacific Tsunami Early Warning Systems.
Furthermore, WMO is
assisting those NMHSs which have been designated as national
Tsunami Focal Points in issuing effective warnings and in
their educational and public outreach programmes within a
multi-hazard framework. The Council also called on the
Comprehensive Nuclear
Test Ban
Treaty Organization (CTBTO) to make its environmental
observations available to support early warnings of selected
natural disasters, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis.
Improving forecasts and
climate watch
The Council
applauded the
WMO programme called THORPEX, aimed at accelerating
improvements in 1- to 14-day weather forecasts, especially
for high-impact weather associated with cyclones of
extra-tropical and tropical origin, by making numerical
probabilistic ensemble weather-forecasting techniques
accessible for all developing countries.
The purpose is to provide accurate and timely weather
warnings, and weather
impact assessments, in
a form that can be readily used for deciding on tools and
strategies to reduce the impact of natural hazards.
Furthermore, the
Council encouraged WMO to set up an appropriate mechanism to
promote the establishment of Regional Climate Watch Systems
for large-scale phenomena, as well as of national systems
that can issue warnings at the national level.
Contribution
to GEOSS highlighted
Recognizing WMO as a
core contributor to the implementation of the Global Earth
Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), the Council called
for efforts to strengthen the coordination needed to warrant
the interoperability of existing systems and the progressive
integration of future ones.
The Council was optimistic that the implementation of
GEOSS would contribute to improved decision-making and
support to nations in several vital socio-economic sectors.
New
information products about ozone
Other decisions taken
by the Council aim to strengthen the role of WMO in the
implementation of the Vienna Convention for the Protection
of the Ozone Layer (which will celebrate its 20th
anniversary on 21 September 2005) and in support of
decision-making on climate and environmental issues. In
addition to its regular Antarctic Ozone Bulletins, WMO will
issue advisories on
other ozone depletion in the Arctic; the state of recovery of global ozone
with the reduction of ozone-destroying halocarbons and global warming;
and an annual WMO Bulletin on Atmospheric
Greenhouse Gases.
International
Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008
The Council endorsed
the fundamental concept of the International Polar Year (IPY)
2007-2008: an intensive burst of internationally
coordinated, interdisciplinary, scientific research and
observations focused on the Earth’s polar regions. It
endorsed research and operational activities planned by WMO
as a co-leading agency for the IPY. These activities are
expected to generate comprehensive datasets and scientific
findings that will promote protection of the environment and
improve forecasting systems, in particular for the
prediction of severe weather phenomena, and will also serve
as a scientific basis for socio-economic planning and
sustainable development.
International
Conference
on Economic and Social Benefits
An International Conference on the
Economic and Social Benefits of Meteorological and
Hydrological Services will be convened in 2007 to
demonstrate the contribution of NMHSs through research and
operational activities in the areas of weather, climate and
water to the realization of national development goals.
This major event will bring together representatives
of NMHSs, decision-makers, user groups, development planners, economists and social scientists.
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