WMO and Green Climate Fund join to support low carbon, climate resilient development

Katowice, 10 December 2018 - The 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 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.

“We are already having a foretaste of the future, with the past four years being the warmest on record and temperatures nearly 1°C above the pre-industrial era.”

“Climate change adaptation and mitigation is no longer a luxury. It is a must. Through this agreement with the Green Climate Fund, WMO hopes to support informed and targeted investments which are based on best science and best practice,” he said.

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. Such coordination includes scaling up and expanding the scope of existing programmes to fill geographic gaps and enhance country-level systems and service delivery with regional and global support, as well as jointly exploring new opportunities and mobilizing new partners.
• Capitalizing on existing intergovernmental initiatives led by WMO, which are focused on low emissions, climate resilience and sustainable development, to increase the coherence and effectiveness of GCF investments. One such initiative is the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS), which is dedicated to providing the climate services needed for adaptation and mitigation. Another key initiative, the Integrated Global Greenhouse Gas Information System (IG3IS), provides information on  atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration sources and quantities, which are needed to target and measure the effectiveness of mitigation efforts.

Other initiatives include the WMO 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. This includes leveraging WMO expertise to support GCF-accredited entities in designing and implementing projects, as well as establishing projects that reinforce basic systems, deliver services, advance research and develop capacity.

The new Memorandum of Understanding with the GCF follows 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.

WMO regards both agreements as pragmatic examples of effective collaboration between climate science and finance institutions to substantially contribute to ramp up effectiveness of climate action.

For further information contact: Clare Nullis, media officer. Email cnullis@wmo.int. Cell +41 79 709 13 97