Leaders of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations (UN) have set a target that within five years, every person on earth should be protected by an early warning system from storms, heatwaves, floods and droughts.
The WMO estimates that to achieve this, total funding of $1.5 billion in investment over the next five years will be required. This is expected to come mainly from wealthy governments.
The organization also estimates that one-third of the world’s population is not covered by an early warning system. This includes 60% of Africans, particularly in the continent’s poorest countries in Central, West and East Africa.
Many small island developing states also lack weather forecasting capacity.
Speaking at the WMO’s 72nd-anniversary celebration, the organisation’s head Petteri Taalas said that besides very critical mitigation reducing emissions, it is growingly important to invest in climate adaptation [adapting to climate change.
Taalas explained that the WMO is expected to unveil a plan to meet the target at the Cop27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt in November, adding that an early warning system is when meteorological organisations use weather data to predict risks and pass warnings on to authorities and the public so they can prepare.
He noted that One of the highest returns on investment is reached by improving the weather, water and climate early warning services and related observing infrastructures.
A senior UN official also noted that it would be “challenging” to raise the money but the sums involved were “a mere rounding error of the $14 trillion mobilised by G20 countries over the last two years to recover their economies from Covid-19”.
Story was adapted from Climate Home News.
