Climate Change: What Can Be Accomplished At The World Climate Conference?

Today is the start of the 3rd world climate conference. It is organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It is hosted by Switzerland, and takes place between August 31 ST to September 4TH.

It should give the international community an unprecedented opportunity to take action for adapting to current & future climate change. Europe has the lead in term of addressing the critical problems created by global warming, it is now the turn of the 3 biggest polluters of the planet (the United States, China & India) to fully get on board with the Europeans.

Some 1,500 policy-makers from more than 150 countries will have the opportunity to interact with scientific experts to take practical steps to deal with climate variability & change. Some 20 Heads of State, and about 80 ministers are expected to participate in the event.

The objective of the conference is to establish a global framework for climate services that will address the needs of policy-makers worldwide to have accurate and timely climate information & forecast. The global framework consists of 4 main components: A renewed commitment to climate observation and the free and open availability of data; strengthened the focus on climate modeling & prediction research; a new climate information system; and a new climate application program. Through these components, the framework aims to build capacity in developing countries and to support the application of climate services for climate resilient development.

The major goal is to develop an effective interface between the providers and users of climate services. Such climate services will provide decision-makers in key socio-economic sectors – water, agriculture, fisheries, health, forestry, transport, tourism, energy and disaster risk managements- with the information they need to make informed decisions in the face of climate variability & change.

This is the 3RD world climate conference organized by the WMO. The first two were held in 1979 & 1990, the one of 1990 was ground breaking in its impact heralding awareness of climate change. Hopefully the current climate conference will be enough in the media spotlight to serve as a reminder, for people worldwide, of the urgency to deal with climate change & global warming. This is the real global threat to the future of the planet & humanity, and global action is imperative without any delay.