Early warnings are vital for safe cities

"Together for a shared safer and greener urban future: resilient, carbon-neutral and nature-positive cities" was the theme of the 17th Annual Session of the theme of the annual session of the Global Forum on Human Settlements on December 15-16.

WMO was a co-organizer of the virtual event, which made a joint urgent call for substantial action and investment at the local and national level to greatly enhance urban resilience, inclusiveness, productiveness and sustainability, and build a safer, greener urban future for all.

WMO also led a thematic session on "Urban Hydrology and Integrated Water Resources Management" to engage key stakeholders, provide technical insights and facilitate cooperation at a wider scale.

WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas stressed the importance and urgency to provide early warnings for all, and shared the corresponding action plan which focuses on disaster risk knowledge, preparedness and response capabilities, detection, observations, monitoring, analysis and forecasting of hazards, and warning dissemination and communication.

"WMO's main focuses is the Early Warnings for All initiative. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tasked WMO in March to prepare an action plan for 2023-27 to reach 100 % coverage of early warning services globally. Today, only half of our 193 Members have state-of-the-art early warning systems in place," said Prof. Taalas.

"To reach the 100 % coverage of Early Warnings during 5 years there is a need to invest in basic meteorological, climate and hydrological observing stations. Lack of national data has a severe negative impact on the accuracies of forecasts and prevents climate adaptation planning," he said.

Ambitious partnerships are needed for reliable climate prediction. Current global climate models struggle to represent precipitation and related extreme events, with serious implications for the physical evidence base to support climate actions. A leap to kilometer-scale models could overcome this shortcoming but requires collaboration on an unprecedented scale, said Prof. Taalas.

The forum was addressed by guests such as Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, Chairman of Global Forum on Human Settlements, Former UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative and Mr. Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary, The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The two-day forum has reached over 100,000 professional audiences through live streaming and remote participation.