By Pita Ligaiula of Pacific Island New Association (PINA)
16 August, 2017, Honiara, Solomon Islands, PMC-4 – The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has boosted its presence in the Asia and Pacific region with the opening of its office in Singapore to better service the needs of member countries.
This was revealed by WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas when addressing Pacific Meteorological Council (PMC) in Honiara today.
“We will also strengthen our office in Samoa.
“To enhance our impact we have started building our partnership with other players. For us the important players are World Bank, ISDR, SPREP, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, ICAO, IMO and WHO. These partnerships we are building I would like also to happen at country level,” Taalas told delegates and members of PMC.
He also welcomed the participation of many delegates at PMC and stressed the importance of collaboration between stakeholders.
“It is also important that the small countries are working together. By working together we can achieve more than by running the business as independents.
“It’s important to work with governments, and we can get these development funding from external sources but for long term sustainability, interaction with individual governments is something we need to promote,” he said.
The WMO DG also highlighted the importance of the upcoming COP23 meeting in November in the work WMO does with partners and donors.
“It’s important we play our political card in a right way and WMO was quite visible at COP22 in Marrakesh and the next challenge is our presence at COP23 in Bonn.
The WMO and several of our partners will be looking forward to the release of the status of Global climate report in the November meet,” Taalas said.
The WMO, through the Commission for Climatology and in cooperation with its members, has issued annual statements on the status of the global climate to provide credible scientific information on climate and its variability. – #PMC4 #PacificMet
The Fourth Pacific Meteorological Council is being held in Honiara, Solomon Islands from the 14 – 17 August co-hosted by the government of Solomon Islands, the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO). This will followed by the Second Pacific Meteorological Ministers Meeting (PMMM) on the 18 of August.
The PMC and PMMM is supported by the Government of Solomon Islands, SPREP, WMO, Government of Australia through the Climate and Oceans Support Programme (COSPPac) and Pacific Australia Climate Change Science and Adaptation Planning Programme (PACCSAP), Government of Finland, National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), United Nations Development Programme through the Resilience in the Pacific (SIDS) project.
The PMC consists of members of the Pacific National Meteorological and Hydrological Services supported by its technical partners, regional organisations, non-government organisations and private sectors.
This article was developed by a Pacific Media Team of Reporters currently providing coverage on the Fourth Pacific Meteorological Council in Solomon Islands. This activity coordinated by SPREP is supported by a partnership between the Government of Solomon Islands, SPREP, Australia funded project (Climate and Oceans Support Program (COSPPac) and UNDP Disaster for Pacific SIDS (RESPAC) project.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) or the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)both of which provided funding for generating media articles.