China announces major boost to Early Warnings for All
In a major boost to the international Early Warnings for All initiative, Chinese vice premier Ding Xuexiang on Tuesday announced concrete measures to contribute to global efforts and enhance climate adaptation capacity.
Ding told a meeting at the UN Climate Change conference, COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan, that China attaches great importance to international cooperation on meteorological early warning – remarks welcomed by WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo, who was also on the high-level panel.
Ding is Chinese President Xi Jinping's special representative Ding and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.
In recent years, climate change has had an increasing impact globally, with frequent extreme weather events posing unprecedented challenges to the safety of people's lives and property as well as to economic and social development, Ding said, adding that strengthening early warning systems for all and enhancing climate adaptation capacity has become increasingly important and urgent.
Ding proposed three points.
- First, jointly improving global risk assessment capabilities and promoting the standardization of climate risk assessments to provide scientific support for climate governance.
- Second, jointly building a global early warning network, sharing technology, enhancing system interconnectivity, and working to improve global early warning systems.
- Third, jointly establishing a climate adaptation partnership. Ding said that China will develop and implement a South-South cooperation flagship project for early warning in response to climate change, supporting other developing countries through the provision of meteorological observation equipment, early warning systems, and capacity-building training.
“China’s Action Plan on Early Warning for Climate Change Adaptation offers significant promise here, particularly in addressing areas that need reinforcement,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.
Take disaster risk knowledge, for example—the first of the four MHEWS pillars. It has seen the greatest improvement since 2015, but it still lags in coverage and comprehensiveness. In addition, presently, only 38 percent of countries report comprehensive multi-hazard monitoring, observation, and forecasting systems, she said.
She welcomed China’s commitment to enhancing capabilities in disaster monitoring, forecasting and early warning, in support of Pillar 2 (detection, monitoring, analysis and forecasting of hazards) which is spearheaded by WMO.
“Risk knowledge, observational data, vulnerability, and exposure insights are fundamental to effective MHEWS. WMO’s role is pivotal here, supporting countries with earth observations, data-sharing frameworks, and support to national forecast and warning services. We welcome China’s ongoing support and encourage collective investment to strengthen data infrastructure. This is particularly essential for local data collection, which drives actionable, community-level response and integrates with global models,” said Celeste Saulo.
Over the next two years, China will launch three FengYun geostationary satellites offering rapid scanning services as needed for high-frequency disaster monitoring in African, Asian and Pacific countries. China is ready to share its cloud-based early warning system with developing countries, an open platform which integrates multhi-hazard early warning tools for hazards monitoring, forecasting and early warnings in meteorology, hydrology, environment and the ocean.
It will offer more than 2,000 short-term training opportunities in early warning, risk assessment and climate change, as well as 100 academic scholarships to developing countries.
COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev, the UN secretary-general's Special Adviser on Climate Action and Just Transition Selwin Hart, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo, and Kamal Kishore, the UN secretary-general's special representative for disaster risk reduction and head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, also attended the meeting and delivered speeches.
During the meeting, China's Action Plan on Early Warning for Climate Change Adaptation (2025-2027) was published.
Celeste Saulo also spoke about Early Warnings For All and the State of the Climate Update at a high-level side event hosted by the Environment and Ecology Bureau, Hong Kong Observatory, the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).
It brought together partners from the United Nations, Mainland China, HKSAR and ‘Belt and Road’ regions to share insights on climate science and explore opportunities including development of new energy and carbon footprint management solutions.
