1. Home
  2. activity areas
  3. climate services
  4. climate policy

Climate Policy

Activity Areas (1)

Climate Services

  • UNCCD

  • UNFCCC

WMO supports the United Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process and every year participates in sessions of the Conference of the Parties (COP), by providing the latest scientific advice and information to governments, including on the state of the climate and greenhouse gas concentrations.

The Decision 5.1/2 (EC-78), invites WMO Members:

(1) To provide high-quality climate and hydrological science-based information, knowledge, and services, through enhanced operational exchanges of climate and hydrological information products required to increase progression towards resiliency and adaptation capacity and low emission pathways and net zero by 2050 under the Paris Agreement and contribute to climate-related national processes, strategies, and investments for the formulation and implementation of the 2025 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs3.0) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs);

(2) To engage with national and international institutions, stakeholders, and public and private financiers that can mobilize resources for enhancing Members’ institutional and operational infrastructure and networks to enable effective design and use of climate and hydrological information services for climate action and achieve country’s climate ambitions;

(3) To coordinate participatory, gender-inclusive, co-produced and user-driven approaches to climate and hydrological information and services under the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) through dedicated national institutional platforms such as the National Frameworks for Climate Services, that can support the integration of context-relevant knowledge, perspectives and solutions in the preparation and implementation of nationally relevant policy documents.

Through the same Decision, a number of actions are also requested by the Secretariat to enhance coordination and capacity development. For more information, refer to Document 5.1 on the list of approved documents: https://meetings.wmo.int/EC-78/English/Forms/AllItems.aspx

Role of NMHSs to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC 3.0)

Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) are at the heart of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement and the achievement of its long-term goals. NDCs embody efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. The Paris Agreement (Article 4, paragraph 2) requires each Party to prepare, communicate and maintain successive NDCs that it intends to achieve.

The 2025 NDCs, or NDC 3.0, are to be prepared with a timeframe for implementation till 2035. All Parties are required to submit their NDC 3.0, latest by February 2025, in order to allow for sufficient time for the preparation of the compilation and synthesis report in advance of CMA7 (November 2025). NDC 3.0 is expected to be a progression beyond previous NDCs and should reflect the highest possible ambition. All Parties submit their 2025 NDCs in a timely manner that is more informative and instructive to drive action.

WMO analysis of NDCs shows that the great majority of NDCs highlighted the role of climate services (108) and early warnings (103) to deliver against the Parties’ commitments laid out in NDCs (as highlighted in the WMO State of Climate Services reports). In Parties’ NDCs, climate services are recognized as a priority for supporting adaptation in agriculture and food security (85%), disaster risk reduction (88%), water resource management (78%) and health (60%).

Overall, NMHSs are key players in the NDCs arena as they provide sound climate science information to define adaptation and mitigation efforts, but so far have not always been involved in the NDCs' development and implementation. The level of involvement varies between sectors, for example, climate information services are regularly recognized for supporting agriculture and food security.

In the meantime, WMO and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are collaborating through Climate Promise to assist NMHSs to connect with the UN Resident Coordinators in their country to build relations between NMHSs and the UN Development System on the NDC 3.0 compilation.

The WMO Secretariat has established a Helpdesk to respond to questions and queries by NMHSs on NDC 3.0, through the following e-mail: climatescience@wmo.int

The Road to COP29

The twenty-ninth Conference of Parties (COP29) of the UNFCCC will be held in Baku, Republic of Azerbaijan, from 11-22 November 2024.

WMO is preparing top-level objectives for COP29, in consultation with the WMO Climate Policy Advisors. Additionally, high-level coordination is in progress through engagements with the UN Climate Core Group, the UN COP29 Task Force, and the UN High-Level Committee on Programmes (HLCP) of COP29 and COP30 Working Group.

WMO’s interagency flagship initiatives, such as the Early Warning for All (EW4All) and Global Greenhouse Gas Watch (G3W) are among our key contributions to the ambition of Parties to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement. These also contribute to the COP 29 presidency initiatives on mitigation and adaptation. During COP29, WMO will have an active role in the next mandated event of the Earth Information Day and we will lead a UN System side event titled “Scaling-up climate finance for ambitious action on early warning systems for adaptation with a focus on the most vulnerable”. There is also ongoing planning for a high-level event with the COP29 Presidency on EW4All.

At COP 21 in Paris, Parties to the UNFCCC reached a landmark agreement to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low carbon future. The Paris Agreement builds upon the Convention and – for the first time – brings all nations into a common cause to undertake take ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so. As such, it charts a new course in the global climate effort. The Paris Agreement’s central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Additionally, the agreement aims to strengthen the ability of countries to deal with the impacts of climate change. To reach these ambitious goals, appropriate financial flows, a new technology framework and an enhanced capacity building framework will be put in place, thus supporting action by developing countries and the most vulnerable countries, in line with their own national objectives. The Agreement also provides for enhanced transparency of action and support through a more robust transparency framework.

  • The Paris Agreement states that adaptation and mitigation should be based on and guided by the best available scientific knowledge. WMO and its co-sponsored body such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) are among the contributors of scientific knowledge, data, information and modelling that inform governments and the public on the current climate and future pathways.

  • SDGs