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Add to Preferred SourcesThe World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) have signed a formal agreement to work together to leverage WMO expertise on weather, climate and water to increase the effectiveness of GCF funded activities and support low carbon and climate resilient development.
Under a new Memorandum of Understanding, WMO will support GCF accredited entities to maximize the benefits of their investments in hydrological and meteorological systems and associated climate information services. It seeks to provide pragmatic ways to bring the best available science into climate finance at a time when climate finance opportunities and climate risks are both increasing.
The agreement was signed by WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas and GCF Executive Director ad interim Javier Manzanares after a ministerial-level session on climate financing at the United Nations Climate Change negotiations in Katowice, Poland.
“Greenhouse gas concentrations have reached the highest level in three million years and are showing no signs of levelling off. This commits our planet to a much warmer future, with more extreme weather and more challenges to our daily lives and to our economies,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
WMO is already supporting the GCF Secretariat in enhancing the Fund’s climate rationale policy, which aims to ensure that proposals submitted to the GCF will be based on the best available climate science.
Through the new partnership, WMO and the GCF will further collaborate in the following areas:
- Coordinating programmes to maximize the impact of investing in hydrological and meteorological systems and associated climate information services.
- Capitalizing on existing intergovernmental initiatives led by WMO, which are focused on low emission, climate resilient and sustainable development, to increase the coherence and effectiveness of GCF investments.
Other initiatives include WMO’s global climate and weather observation and forecasting systems and the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems Initiative (CREWS).
- Improving individual projects, by ensuring that GCF-funded activities involving hydrological and meteorological services and systems can benefit from the high standards set through and by WMO.
The new Memorandum of Understanding with the GCF follows the signing of a framework agreement signed between the World Bank and WMO to simplify the process by which World Bank borrowers engage WMO to provide technical assistance.
Original source: WMO
Published on 10 December 2018