WMO highlights 2024 State of Climate Services Report at COP 29

At COP 29 in Bakoe, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) presented the 2024 edition of its State of Climate Services report. This report, which is an update of its 2023 report, analyses the state of climate services across the world - with a particular focus on the progress made in support of climate adaptation and mitigation actions around the world. Because climate extremes are becoming more frequent and intense, the need for accurate and timely information from climate services to inform decision making is becoming ever more important. In 2018, the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) had called on WMO to report regularly on the state of climate services. In response, from 2019 onwards, WMO has published annual global updates on the state of global climate services. 

The 2024 report sets out by underlining the current challenges: the year 2023 was the warmest year on record, following a string of eight previous years which showed similar high average temperatures. The number of reported weather-related disasters has been increasingly steadily, effectively tripling since the 1970’s. Of these, water-related disasters such as floods, droughts, storms and landslides predominate – followed by fires, cold waves and heat waves.  Floods remain the most commonly reported disaster. 
Looking at policy responses, the report signals that there is an increasing recognition of the importance of integrating climate services into national adaptation strategies for vulnerable sectors and geographic areas. Looking at National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), 83% of the 53 countries that have developed a NAP have recognised the importance of climate services to inform decision making. Similarly, climate services are recognised as an important underpinning for the elaboration of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – countries’ climate action plans. Looking at existing NAP’s, it is interesting to note that among the measures identified by countries to reduce vulnerability to climate change, water features as the third most cited priority after agriculture and food security and health and well-being. 

Within NDC’s, water has clearly moved to the top priority area for action on adaptation. In the first WMO report published in 2019, water was the second highest ranked adaptation priority by countries after agriculture and food security.  By May 2024, water had moved to the top of the agenda and was ranked as the highest priority item by 134 countries of the 174 NDCs submitted. 
Progress in improving climate services  

The WMO categorises the quality of national climate services on a five point scale ranging from ‘less than basic’ at the lower end of the scale, through ‘basic’, ‘essential’, ‘full’ and finally ‘advanced’ at the upper end of this scale. Across the whole scale, the report finds that substantial improvements have been made in climate services. On the one hand, on the higher end of the scale, there has been a rapid increase in the number of countries with ‘full’ or ‘advanced’ climate services: in five years, the number of countries with ‘full’ services has increased by 54%, while the number of countries with ‘advanced’ services has increased by 87%. On the other hand, at the lower end of the scale,  the number of countries with ‘less than basic’ services has halved while the number of countries with ‘basic’ levels of climate services  has declined by 32%. 

Looking at the picture from a regional perspective, certain regions stand out: notable progress has been made in upgrading climate services on the African continent, in Asia, North and Central America, the Caribbean and Oceania. This picture broadly corresponds with investments made in climate services: Asia accounted for 53% of investments in climate services globally, Africa for 23% and Oceania for 12%. 

Global Standards and Capacity Building
The WMO is moving forward with establishing a set of benchmarks for weather and climate observations. In 2021, WMO established the Global Basic Observing Network  which sets the minimum set of basic weather and climate observations that countries need to generate and exchange internationally. At this point in time, only 28 countries comply with these standards. To follow climate developments, WMO recommends a Global Climate Observing System which tracks 55 variables that are needed to understand the climate system and monitor its changes. 
Another initiative is the National Framework for Climate Services: this is a mechanism for strengthening collaboration among national climate services institutions. By pooling the strengths of national climate systems, countries can mutually integrate their climate services and information activities, including seasonal and long-term climate forecasts, risk assessments, historical climate data analysis and real-time climate monitoring. Currently there are still gaps in climate services, as 44% of national services still only provide these services at a ‘basic’ level. The WMO sees regional cooperation as a key ingredient for the upgrading of these services, and at this point in time there are 26 designated WMO Regional Training Centres (RTCs) which serve as hubs for educating and equipping national climate service personnel with the necessary competences and knowledge to develop and deliver weather, climate and hydrological services.