BULLETINVol. 68 (2) - 2019 WEATHER CLIMATE WATER CLIMATE WEATHER Realizing the WMO 2030 Vision WMO BULLETIN Contents The journal of the World Meteorological Realizing the WMO Vision for 2030: Organization An interview with Secretary-General Petteri Taalas Volume 68 (2) - 2019 By Sylvie Castonguay. 2 Secretary-General P. Taalas Deputy Secretary-General E. Manaenkova Copernicus Joining Forces with WMO on Assistant Secretary-General W. Zhang GFCS The WMO Bulletin is published twice per year By Erica Allis, Jean-Nöel Thépaut, Carlo Buontempo, in English, French, Russian and Spanish editions. Rupa Kumar Kolli, Wilfran Moufouma Okia, Berit Arheimer, Abdu Ali, Joni Dehaspe and Editor E. Manaenkova Christian Birkel . 5 Associate Editor S. Castonguay Editorial board E. Manaenkova (Chair) Sustainability of Atmospheric S. Castonguay (Secretary) P. Kabat (Chief Scientist, research) Observations in Developing Countries R. Masters (policy, external relations) M. Power (development, regional activities) By Paolo Laj, Marcos Andrade, Ranjeet Sokhi, J. Cullmann (water) Y. Adebayo (education and training) Claudia Volosciuk and Oksana Tarasova . .14 F. Belda Esplugues (observing and information systems) Subscription rates Changing Volatile Organic Compound Surface mail Air mail 1 year CHF 30 CHF 43 Emissions in Urban Environments: 2 years CHF 55 CHF 75 Many Paths to Cleaner Air E-mail: [email protected] By Isobel Simpson and Claudia Volosciuk . .22 © World Meteorological Organization, 2018 The right of publication in print, electronic and any other form and in any language is reserved by WMO. Short extracts from WMO publications may be reproduced without authorization, provided that the complete source is clearly indicated. 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The opinions, findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in WMO Bulletin articles and advertisements are those of the authors and advertisers and do not necessarily reflect those of WMO or its Members. Cover photo: Manuel Roca From Atmospheric Observations and Development of Operational Weather Analysis of Greenhouse Gases to Emission Forecasting Shaped by the “Triple-In” Estimates: a Scientific Adventure Properties of Numerical Models By Shamil Maksyutov, Dominik Brunner, By Rucong Yu, Jian Li and Pengqun Jia. .56 Alistair Manning, Paul Fraser, Oksana Tarasova and Claudia Volosciuk . .29 Nowcasting Guidelines – A Summary Weather and Climate Services: An By Franziska Schmid, Yong Wang and Increasing Range of Choice for the Abdoulaye Harou . .63 Public and Private Sector By Adriaan Perrels . 36 Origin, Impact and Aermath of WMO Resolution 40 Encouraging Innovation Across WMO By John W. Zillman . .69 By Christoph Meister and Florian Teichert . 42 The New WMO Community Platform Early Warnings of Coastal Inundation By Florian Teichert . .72 By Val Swail, Sarah Grimes and Paul Pilon, Ray Canterford, Curtis Barrett, and Yuri Simonov . 48 2 Vol. 68 (2) - 2019 Realizing the WMO Vision for 2030: An interview with Secretary- General Petteri Taalas By Sylvie Castonguay1 and working practices – often without success. The motivation of Prof. Taalas to apply for the Secretary General post was to modernize WMO. The Eighteenth World Meteorological Congress (Cg-18) in 2019 approved a historic reform package that includes a reduction in the number of technical commissions from eight to two to favour Earth System weather, climate, water and ocean infrastructures and the development of a wide range of multi-hazard services. Cg-18 also decided to establish a Scientific Advisory Panel of world leading experts to give strategic guidance for WMO. In addition, it established a Research Board to support Members in the science to services process. CG-18 also approved a new Geneva Declaration for coordinated engagement of the private sector in WMO activities. A Technical Coordination Committee and Policy Advisory Committee were set up to prepare and streamline decisions of the Executive Council and Congress. The goal is to ensure that WMO remains fit-for-purpose, WMO becomes more nimble and uses its intellectual and The Seventeenth World Meteorological Congress in financial resources more cost-e£ectively. There is a 2015 appointed Petteri Taalas as Secretary-General of desire to engage more experts from the least developed the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and gave countries in core WMO activities. It was also decided him a strong mandate to reform the WMO governance to organize an extra Congress in the middle of the structure. Climate change, an increasing number of current WMO four-year cycle. disasters, population growth, urbanization, uneven development of countries and new technologies were However, other big challenges lie ahead. One of the the main drivers for the reform.1 most formidable relates to data sharing – a core tenet of WMO that is once again under threat. International Many United Nations agencies, including WMO, cooperation under the (mostly non-governmental) have attempted to reform their constituent bodies International Meteorological Organization (IMO), whose origins date to 1873, and the (intergovernmental) WMO 1 WMO Secretariat was built on almost universal sharing of observational WMO BULLETIN 3 WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at UN Headquarters in New York on 6 March 2018. data and scientific knowledge. Today, the WMO The timeline for the reform transition is ambitious. community faces opportunities and threats from new How do you plan to roll out the reform without technologies – one of those threats is to the free and disrupting the work of WMO? Where do you start? open sharing of data. There is a need to re-examine the policy foundations of current practices. Taalas: Reform processes are always challenging. In our case, we have been lucky to mobilize large amounts There is also urgency for action to bring down barriers of WMO Secretariat sta£, as well as national experts between public and private sector components of the and directors, to design the transition process and to weather enterprise, scientific fields, policymakers ensure the success of the reform. and society as a whole to ensure “that the best and most e£ective services, forecasts and warnings are In addition to what is outlined in the introduction, provided” as per the Geneva Declaration. In order to the challenges ahead concern the reform of the facilitate an open, constructive dialogue among all WMO Secretariat structure and working practices. players toward achieving this end, WMO launched The Secretariat structure and sta¦ng are supposed an Open Consultative Platform in June. to be finalized by the end of 2019. Cg-18 tasked me as Secretary-General to streamline, modernize and How the Platform will achieve this goal, the next steps improve the e¦ciency of administrative work. WMO to be taken towards a greater integration of private has already advertised and selected a top management and academic sectors in the work of WMO and other team. Broader job descriptions will be drafted, where questions are answered by Secretary-General Taalas necessary, for professional sta£ members and rotation in the interview below in which he outlines the way will be encouraged. The use of administrative resources ahead for his second term in o¦ce from 2020−2023. will be more centralized, and administrative sta£ 4 Vol. 68 (2) - 2019 will be o£ered new duties following technological of WMO expertise and to support Members in the advancements. developing and least developed countries. What are the main hurdles you foresee in implementing Are there other challenges that you would like to the reform into the structure and culture of WMO? address in your next term? How will you tackle these? Taalas: The United Nations has been successful in Taalas: In addition to changing the constituent bodies promoting a wide global development agenda: health, and Secretariat structures, it is essential to pay attention crisis mitigation, education, economic growth, gender, to the cultural changes. There is a chance to promote etc. Today, the main challenge for the UN is climate the Earth System, multi-hazard services and seamless mitigation and adaptation as well as population growth predictions on all scales, where weather, climate, water, control. WMO is the key player in climate mitigation oceans and atmospheric composition are handled in and adaptation inside the UN family. unity instead of in silos. Those wider perspectives are great opportunities for the whole WMO community as well as for individual experts. Organizations and individuals are resistant to change. Four years is a short period to anchor changes in order to avoid WMO slipping back into its old silo mentality. What tactics and tools will you use to achieve long- lasting change? Taalas: The whole process has been run as a large community e£ort. The enthusiasm and commitment of WMO sta£ and Members has been impressive. I am convinced that no one will want to turn back once they have started to enjoy the fruits of the reform processes. The demand for weather, climate and water expertise, services and science is currently growing considerably. Our new business models will o£er us great opportunities to respond to that demand. Above we highlighted the data challenge, the breaking down of barriers and other major challenges.