World Meteorological Organization

The Water and Climate Coalition is aimed at strengthening operational capacities at national, regional and global level to address water related sustainable development and climate change adaptation challenges.

 

The Coalition focuses on achieving progress in in 2 areas:

• Catalyzing tangible action and activities for water and climate

• Providing guidance for High Level Policy Development on water and climate

 

The four main Impacts of the Water and Climate Coalition are:

 

 

The Water and Climate Coalitions aims to support its members delivering to the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework and the UN Sustainable Development Agenda.

 

 

Who is part of the Water and Climate Coalition?

 

 

Coalition Members:

The members of the Coalition are aiming to provide tangible action and activities for water and climate.

Members of the coalition propose activities related to the four impact areas described above.

Activities can consist of projects, partnerships, knowledge or technology transfer, data, information systems, resources, calls and offers for joint monitoring, modelling and forecasting, etc.

Activities shall be aimed at and formulated to fulfill a specific goal. Activities should also explicitly contain milestones, a time frame and measures for success. In consultation with other interested members of the coalition, work and resource plans are formulated, communicated and implemented. The coalition is targeted at creating maximum benefit at national, regional and global level; therefore, contributions shall be formulated in a way that other partners of the coalition can benefit from supporting and joining a collective effort.

 

Being a member of the coalition is on a voluntary basis, it is a non-bureaucratic community of like-minded and aims to create a movement rather than to function as a structure or an organization. Criteria for becoming a member are:

1. Being seriously committed and bringing a contribution to the table

2. Adhere to the 10 principles as described by the UN-Global Compact

Membership duration is self-determined and, as a general rule, linked to the duration required to implement activities. The coalition is set to create action through positive motivation. The objective is to engage and align different players to generate trust and momentum through implementing concrete activities at national, regional and global scale.

 

The Coalition welcomes members from UN organizations, private sector, scientific organisations, NGOs, Member States and civil society.

New Members are accepted on a continuous basis from September 1^st 2020. On an interim basis, the coalition's Secretariat is hosted at the World Meteorological Organization.

 

The start a discussion on how to become a coalition member, please provide your contact details here:

How-to-join-the-Coalition

 

For further information, please contact the Water and Climate Coalition Team:

WaterClimateCoalition@WMO.int

 

 

Water and Climate Leaders:

The group of Water and Climate Leaders provide guidance for high level policy development.

More information on the Water and Climate Leaders will follow.

 

 

Status and way forward

Initial Members of the coalition comprise UNDP,  FAO, UNEP, WMO, UNESCO, WHO and UNECE.

 

 

 

July 2020: Launch of call for membership

November 2020: Opening of coalition for non-UN Members

November 2020: First meeting of the advisors

June 2021: The first stock-take during the extraordinary WMO Water Congress.

 

 

Background on why the Water and Climate Coalition is needed

We are seriously off track to meet the current goals of the water-related SDGs, especially SDG6 and we are nowhere near ensuring resilient water adaptation to climate change as well as demographic and socioeconomic development for the future.

A major obstacle to provide efficient and sustainable water solutions is the lack of information about the currently available water resources, future availability and demand for food and energy supply. Decision makers are faced with the same dilemma when it comes to flood and drought risks. Today, 60 % of WMO Member States report declining capabilities in hydrological monitoring and thus in the provision of decision support in the water, food and energy nexus. More than 50 % of countries worldwide have no quality management system for their water related data in place. Only about 40% of countries worldwide have good flood and drought early warning systems operational.  Political decision makers around the world lack a trustworthy information base in order to take decisions that have legal consequences on river basin scales. This situation is unacceptable in the 21^st Century and seriously threatens the sustainable development agenda.  

The Water and Climate Coalition is a voluntary effort to close the information gap in the water, food and energy nexus and focuses on the impact scale, to ensure UN Members are properly equipped to address the above-mentioned challenges. Fit for purpose National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, embedded in regional and global information streams are a prerequisite for success. The water and climate coalition is designed to ensure relevant capabilities are in place.

The Water and Climate coalition supports the implementation of the UN Water Action Decade through the UN-Water Global Accelerator Framework for SDG 6 with a concrete action mechanism.

 

The Un-Water framework defines the following 5 key areas for mobilizing engagement and ensuring alignment and accountability, not only for UN Agencies but with, for and between Members, the private sector and civil society:

• Data and Information (main focus of the Water and Climate Coalition)
• Capacity Development
• Financing
• Innovation
• Good Governance