Summary of message by Michel Jarraud, Secretary General of the WMO
Every year, the 23rd of March, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the international meteorological community join efforts to celebrate the World Meteorological Day, commemorating the coming into force in 1950 of the WMO Convention through which WMO assumed the previous responsibilities of the International Meteorological Organization (IMO), established in 1873 to foster international collaboration in meteorology for the protection of life and property.
(Curaçao and St.Maarten have together been a Member of the WMO since October 10, 2010.)
The theme adopted for 2012 is "Powering our future with weather, climate and water", in particular to illustrate the benefits provided by weather, climate and water information to different socioeconomic sectors.
Such a theme seems especially appropriate this year, as in 2011 the Sixteenth World Meteorological Congress unanimously agreed to launch in 2012 a Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS), responds to the mandate of the Third World Climate Conference (WCC-3) which, in the Summer of 2009.
The four initial GFCS priorities would be disaster risk reduction, water, health, and food security. The first of these GFCS priorities, disaster risk reduction, has been for years a high WMO priority and it continues to be so, especially since vulnerable communities around the globe are struggling to increase their effectiveness in preventing or mitigating natural disasters, close to 90 per cent of which over the last 50 years have been linked to weather, climate and water hazards and fall therefore within the mandate of WMO.
The provision of weather-, climate-, and water-related information is also needed to support several vital socio-economic activities like agriculture, health, transport, energy generation and water resources management, all of which have the potential to provide considerable developmental benefits through a relatively moderate investment, particularly in capacity development.
Furthermore, WMO has continued to stress that Least-developed Countries (LDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and other vulnerable developing countries should be increasingly empowered to use early warning systems to safeguard their fragile sustainable development, as well as the environment and the global climate, for present and future generations.
Therefore, the theme for World Meteorological Day-2012 is particularly appropriate to afford all WMO Members a key opportunity to illustrate some of the most significant benefits which can be derived from weather, climate and water observations and predictions, in particular from the perspective of climate as a resource and to power their sustainable development through the GFCS.
In the course of this vital endeavour, I am confident that the theme of World Meteorological Day 2012 will contribute to further engage all WMO Members and partners, at the highest level, in these key initiatives and so I wish to congratulate them most sincerely on the occasion of the World Meteorological Day 2012.