PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, November 7, 2022 — The twenty-seventh session of the UN Conference of the Parties (COP27) will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Arab Republic of Egypt (Egypt), from 6 to 18
November 2022. A major item on the agenda is the United Nations (UN) Global Early Warning Initiative for the Implementation of Climate Adaptation.
The Caribbean Meteorological Organization (CMO), an admitted Intergovernmental Organization (IGO) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is breaking new ground as a collaborator for a Side Event at COP27. CMO is collaborating with the Climate Risk Early Warning Systems (CREWS) Secretariat and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for an event on “Mitigating Climate Risk and Enhancing Resilience: Towards Early Warnings for All” on 11 November This event will take stock of the climate risk mitigation and early warning coverage achieved through the CREWS Initiative.
The CMO will be represented at COP27 by Dr Arlene Laing, Coordinating Director of the CMO Headquarters (HQ). She will participate in various events that support the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, call for action to ensure that every person on Earth is protected by early warning systems within five years.
The WMO was designated to lead this effort and will present to COP27 an Action Plan to achieve this goal. The Action Plan highlights the need for better understanding of risk across all time scales and the compounding risk factor of hydro-meteorological events.
Key to the implementation of “Early warnings for all” are National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and Disaster Risk Management agencies, as authoritative providers; collaborating across multiple sectors with other national and regional stakeholders. The Caribbean is vulnerable to multi-hazards, including weather and climate extremes, climate change, and environmental degradation. CMO will help to voice the regional perspective on early warnings during the following side events:
- Starting on November 8, 2022, CMO HQ will participate in a panel discussion, to be headlined by the WMO Secretary-General, on “Public-Private approaches in response to the Early Warnings for All initiative.”
- On November 11, 2022, CMO HQ will participate in an event entitled “Scaling-up early warning and early action through comprehensive disaster and climate risk management, which is led by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the WMO.
- Later on November 11, 2022, CMO HQ will participate in its proposed Side Event, with the CREWS Secretariat and WMO, “Mitigating Climate Risk and Enhancing Resilience: Towards Early Warnings for All”.
- On November 12, 2022, Dr Laing will be the opening speaker for an event on Early Warning Systems and the impact of the Canada CREWS Project. The lead organizers of this event are Environment and Climate Change Canada and the CREWS Secretariat.
- Furthermore, as a Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Institution, CMO will be supporting the CARICOM Secretariat with its Side event on 14 November, which is focused on environmental monitoring and data management systems for loss and damage in Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
Additionally, CMO HQ has been helping its Member States formulate policy, legislation, and national frameworks that ensure early warning services and improve climate resilience across the region. The
National Meteorological and Hydrometeorological Services of CMO Members will play a key role in the operational implementation of early warning and early actions for weather, climate, and water-related hazards and in advancing Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (MHEWS).
The CMO HQ’s participation at COP 27 will provide an opportunity to register regional interest in supporting early warning for all and promote the Caribbean National Meteorological and hydrometeorological Services as authoritative providers of early warnings.
The continued collaboration with the WMO and other UN Specialized Agencies, demonstrates the sustained advocacy by the CMO, on behalf of its sixteen (16) Member States in the English-speaking
Caribbean, for weather and climate risk management and socio-economic development.
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Contact:
Dr Arlene Laing
Coordinating Director
CMO Headquarters Unit
cmohq@cmo.org.tt
About the CMO
The Caribbean Meteorological Organization (CMO) is a specialized agency of the Caribbean
Community (CARICOM) that coordinates the joint scientific and technical activities in weather, climate
and water – related sciences in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, British Virgin
Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint
Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turks and Caicos Islands. The
Organs of the CMO are the: (i) Caribbean Meteorological Council (CMC)-Ministerial-level Governing
Body of the CMO, (ii) Headquarters Unit, headed by a Coordinating Director, located in Trinidad and
Tobago; (iii) Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) located in Barbados; and (iv)
Caribbean Meteorological Foundation (CMF).