Messages from 1st SG Townhall with relevance for G3W
Discussion items
Time
Item
Who
Notes
50min
1st Townhall
Celeste
Townhall SG Keynote Contents
Brief presentation. Who is Celeste Saulo
Building from our strengths, identifying our current limitations
What kind of Organization do we aspire to be? Transforming words into action I
Empowering regions:Transforming words into actions II
Key aspects of leading flagship initiatives
Staff wellness at the heart of a Secretariat motivated to serve others
Who is Professor Celeste Saulo, Secretary General of WMO
PhD in Atmospheric Sciences - University of Buenos Aires- Argentina
Professor at the UBA (30 years) - Head of Research Group
Director of the National Meteorological Service of Argentina (9 years)
WMO EC member, 2nd VP, 1st VP
(Since 2015)
WMO strengths
UN specialized agency with clear mandate: climate-weather-water-environment. We work based on science and solid information.
Long history engaging with country Members:
monitoring the earth system
sharing information
defining best practices
supporting operational and critical services,
promoting targeted science to improve infrastructure, service delivery and policymaking
contributing to capacity development, seeking to reduce the development gaps
Climate change, water and food security, energy transition, sustainability ARE CORE ISSUES for every country. Are core issues for HUMANITY. We are privileged to work for WMO.
Our current limitations within the organization
Working in silos
Lack of trust
Too vertical
Too bureaucratic
Our current limitations outside the organization:
Slow at implementing
Weak/loose interaction with partners and UN family Limited visibility
Members not always on board
5min
Q&A
Gianpaolo
Dear SG, thank you for a compelling & inspiring talk. It resonated with me as leadership by example. Three questions or observations from me:
I and the G3W-Team salute with enthusiasm a new era of Climate Action Support & Assessment (our CASA) at WMO.
Three questions or observations from me:
What level of protection do you envisage for the communication aspects that can become target of organised actions. The example I can bring is the climategate-and-scientific-conduct case of 2010. Moreover, WEF identified that the short-term (2-year) risk number-1 is Misinformation & Disinformation. Digital and Legal protections might be important assets for the New Era? Possibly Internal Training on Public Speaking on Climate Stakeholders might be helpful? The risks of us using ChatGPT to speed-up communication for instance could entail Copyright infringment as in the New-York-Times-lawsuit?
How can we succeed in working beyond NMHSs with Nations and working with the UNFCCC entities (see: G3W-UNFCCC-Reporting-Agencies (external link)) that are responsible for GHGs Inventories and the National Determine Contributions. Possibly creative thinking is needed here as sometimes the “silos” working styles have also secular ministerial roots. Those roots cannot will not be eradicated but may need some "clever gardeners" that trim and save the plant, and nurture it, so that when the spring season come there might be flowers in blossom?
During and after your inspiring talk and in the Q&A there was reference to the Sustainable Development Goals SDGs. What about potential contraddictions of the SDGs (see Chakraborty 2023 Nature) ? For instance SDG-1 and 2 could sometimes be contraddictory with SDG-13, a clear example are poor rural community with access to natural resources such as coal or wood harvest of primary forests, that could potentially lift from poverty and hunger (in SDG-1 and 2 compliance) but will cause harm to the Climate and Environment. In absence of clarity that SDG-13 is "Our golden goal", and some mechanisms of compensation and incentives to not extract coal and to not allow logging of primary forests, our communication will need to be mindful of the reality of poor and deprived areas that cannot comply with SDG-13 if they are left alone.
Action items
Gianpaolo to discuss with Communications experts to investigate Training for Public Speaking for Climate-Change
Gianpaolo to send the Cambridge University Climate to Clare and Brigitte by
