The UN Response to Climate Change

UN Delivering as One

Acting on Climate Change: The UN System Delivering as One Website

The WMO participates in the UN’s joint framework of activities titled ‘Acting on Climate Change: The UN System Delivering as One’.

In this joint initiative, the United Nations system has mobilized the wide range of expertise and knowledge available within their organizations to focus on priority areas and specific deliverables. The work is addressing both mitigation and adaptation solutions in a diverse range of areas including: science and technology, agriculture, transport, forestry and disaster risk reduction.

Under the UN delivering as One, WMO and UNESCO have jointly taken the lead on coordinating the UN system in the area of “Science assessment, monitoring and early warning (knowledge base)” as a key cross-cutting area for knowledge management and sharing.  The primary actions of the “knowledge base” would be to:

1. Provide easy access to scientific data and information that are clear and useful to global and regional international organizations, national governments including all their sectoral development institutions, local governments and other user communities for assessment and applications
2. Serve as a repository of early ­warning of high impact weather and prediction and projections of climate so that users can adapt their decisions and actions appropriately
3. Strengthen the links between science, policy and action by providing policy makers and other stakeholders with appropriate information in a timely manner
4. Harness international science and technology and provide tools for decision making in various sectors
5. Strengthen capacities of countries to better utilize available information resources for response planning including disaster risk reduction
6. Draw upon systems that provide critical data and information on weather, climate, biodiversity, water and biomass resources and human welfare.

[Further information] on the UN delivering as One initiative can be found here.

International Partnerships for Climate Change

Climate change poses considerable challenges to human society. Many socioeconomic sectors, including water, agriculture, fisheries, health, forestry, transport, tourism and energy are all highly sensitive to weather and climate extremes such as droughts, floods, cyclones and storms  etc. Climate information at various times scales, and projections of future climate at regional, national and local scales, form the essential knowledge base for adaptation to, and disaster risk management of, these climate change challenges.

WMO, consisting of a network of the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) of its 189 Members, along with its partners in international organizations and national institutions, promotes the generation, delivery and use of climate information.

The WMO and its  network of NMHSs works with numerous partners on a large variety of projects and programmes. Some of these are mentioned below:

Millennium Development Goals

The WMO provides active support to the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger and of ensuring environmental sustainability. One example of this is its participation in jointly funded aid projects aimed at improving inter alia, disaster response and climate related services throughout Africa and in Central Asia with partners that include the EU, World Food Programme, World Bank and National aid agencies.

[Further information] about the UN Millennium Goals can be found here.

Water and Marine Partnerships

As part of its work, the WMO and UNESCO/IOC manages the Joint Technical Commission on Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM), which leads to unprecedented levels of cooperation in the implementation of weather and climate services to meet the diverse needs of the marine community.

The WMO’s Commission for Hydrology (CHy) also works closely with the UNESCO International Hydrology Programme (IHP) to improve global hydrological systems and services.

WMO is also partner to the UN-Water initiative to strengthen coherence among UN  entities dealing with all aspects of freshwater and sanitation.

Aviation Partnerships

The WMO, through its Commission for Aeronautical Meteorology (CAeM) works closely with the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) to continuously, and cost effectively, improve the weather and climate services available to underpin commercial aviation.

UN Conventions

WMO is committed to supporting the implementation of the Vienna Convention on Protection of the Ozone Layer, and its Montreal Protocol and Amendments as well as the UNECE Convention on Long Range Transboundry Air Pollution. Under a WMO coordinated programme NMHSs have undertaken the responsibility to monitor various greenhouse gases, ozone, and aerosol in the atmosphere all of which are relevant to climate change.

Both WMO and NMHSs have been involved with the activities of the UNFCCC since its very inception. WMO, with the support of NMHSs, contributes to the UNFCCC ‘Nairobi Programme of Work on Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change’ and commits itself to facilitate dissemination and use of knowledge on applications of climate science for adaptation.

It also actively supports other UN climate related Conventions such as the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and UN Conventions on Biodiversity (UNCBD), providing scientific inputs and advice.

[Further information] on the WMO and its contribution to environmental conventions can be found here.