World Meteorological Day 2025 Ceremony
Switzerland
Celebrations of the World Meteorological Day will take place worldwide, with events organized by NMHSs on the theme “Closing the early warning gap together”. At WMO Headquarters, a ceremony will take place on 24 March 2025.
Halfway through the Early Warnings for All Initiative called by UNSG at World Meteorological Day 2022 and launched at COP28, WMO looks into the global collaboration to achieve the initiative by 2027.
Three main channels of collaboration are scaling-up collaboration in the delivery of the pillar 2 of the EW4All (Detection, observations, monitoring, analysis and forecasting of hazards):
- Innovating together - Together to scale-up technologies
- Standing together -Together to foster collaboration in countries
- Investing together - Together to mobilize and share resources
The World Meteorological Day ceremony will unfold as follows:
Panel part 1 - Official addresses: "Together to foster collaboration among countries"
Where are the gaps and how can we foster collaboration among countries? How does it all start to implement early warnings and how can countries learn from each other? How to implement road maps without overlapping with other actors involved?
Speakers:
- Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of WMO
- H.E. Mr. Tovar da Silva Nunes, Permanent representative of Brazil to the United Nations Office at Geneva, on bringing countries together for COP30
- H.E. Mr. Mxolisi Nkosi, Permanent representative of South Africa to the United Nations Office at Geneva, on bringing countries together for G20
"Standing together" - a story from Ghana
- Maureen Ahiataku, Principal Meteorologist at Ghana Meteorological Agency. Ghana just validated their EW4All roadmap and implemented CAP Alerts. The story of a new narrative around collaborating to close the early warning gap.
Panel part 2 - Innovating together - Together to scale-up technologies
What are the gaps and how can we close them by scaling-up technologies together? How can we improve observations, satellites and scale-up AI and machine learning for better forecasts?
- Mrs Soma Sen Roy, Director General of Meteorology, India Meteorological Department, to talk about nowcasting and the challenges of getting everyone to understand the message of early warnings in India.
- Mr Florian Pappenberger, ECMWF Deputy Director-General & Director of Forecasts on how technology and AI improves weather prediction.
- Mrs Thelma Cinco – Chief of climatology and hydrometeorology at PAGASA (Philippines), and MIBFEWS project leader, on improving the understanding of impact in the last mile.
Panel part 3 - Investing together – Together to mobilize and share resources
Why investing in early warnings and how much does it cost to close the early warning gap? What is the interest of businesses to invest in early warnings? How can we scale up South-South cooperation?
Speakers:
- Mr Yi Wang, Director of World Meteorological Center Beijing Operation Office, on South-South financial support.
- Mrs Carolina Fuentes Castellanos, Director of the Santiago Network Secretariat. WMO recently joined the Santiago Network, on the importance of networks to close the early warning gap.
- Mr Niels Holm-Nielsen, Global Technical Lead for Resilience and Disaster Risk Management, World Bank, on financial contribution to close the early warning gap.
Join us for the global celebration, which will be broadcast live on the WMO YouTube channel.
Speakers
