UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : WMO Press Conference: 'United in Science' 2024 report

Climate crisis: New technologies offer hope for global action, says UN weather agency

Amid renewed warnings from leading climate scientists that global warming could reach 3°C above pre-industrial levels this century, the head of the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) insisted on Wednesday that new technologies and AI offer the opportunity to implement the drastic action needed to resist the existential crisis.

“The science is clear: we are far off track from achieving global climate goals,” said Celeste Saulo, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General. Speaking to journalists in Geneva, she noted that 2023 was the warmest year on record “by a huge margin. Leading international data sets say that the first eight months of 2024 are also the warmest on record.”

Ms. Saulo’s warning coincided with the publication of the latest multi-agency United in Science annual report. Its release comes as huge wildfires rage across Latin America and Portugal, while central European countries battle deadly flooding in the wake of Storm Boris, with Italy now on high alert following mass evacuations in Poland, Czech Republic, Austria and Romania.

Despite progress made in mitigating global greenhouse gas emissions, “the emissions gap remains high”, the WMO-partnered report notes. It further warns that if there is no change to current policies, there is a 66 per cent probability that global warming will reach 3°C this century.

Despite the troubling clarity of science, the report offers grounds for hope. “When the Paris Agreement was adopted, greenhouse gas emissions were projected to increase by 16 per cent by 2030, relatively to 2015,” explained the WMO chief. “Now, that projected increase is three per cent. So, progress has been made, but we need to be much more ambitious. The gap between aspiration and reality is a glaring one.”

New technologies and innovation are potential game-changers

In a call for global and urgent action coinciding with the upcoming Summit of the Future at UN headquarters in New York on 22-23 September, the UN weather agency underscored the untapped potential of natural and social sciences, new technology and innovation to help countries develop, reduce their vulnerability to disaster and adapt to climate change.

Space-based Earth observations are part of the solutions highlighted in the report, as they are crucial for effective weather forecasting, climate prediction and environmental monitoring. “Satellites are improving our ability to monitor greenhouse gas emissions, which is crucial for informing our efforts to mitigate emissions and to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement,” explained Lauren Stuart, scientific coordinator at WMO.

Another example is “immersive technologies, which are bridging the digital and the physical worlds. And an example of this is what we call ‘digital twins’, which is basically a digital replication of the Earth.” Digital twins create a virtual real-world system to simulate how reality would respond in any given situation. The metaverse gather virtual worlds into an “integrative system” that provides immersive experiences from simulating flood and drought events to predicting water flow and impacts on land. These technologies enable experts to take decisions towards achieving the universally agreed Sustainable Development Goals.

Ms. Saulo insisted that technology alone will not be enough to solve climate change and disaster risk reduction as she urged all countries to share their expertise and experiences at the Summit of the Future. “I do trust in governments. I do trust in multilateralism. I do trust in the Summit of the Future and how this will help us address, use the technology for the better while controlling the negative impacts of technology,” she emphasized.

The UN weather agency chief underscored the need for a “transdisciplinary approach”, where a diversity of actors including scientists, policymakers, indigenous communities and civil society groups create solutions together. “Science should not be kept in a box for a few of us. Science should be the driving mechanism all around the world to really transform and give more opportunities for the generations to come.”

Ends.

WMO Press Conference: 'United in Science' 2024 report - 18 September 2024

Similar Stories