U.N. announces to improve weather monitoring at COP26

• The initiative would help prepare developing countries for the possible disasters.

• WMO aims to improve weather monitoring in 75 small island nations and least-developed countries

Three U.N. agencies on Wednesday will roll out funding plans for better weather forecasting in poorer countries as climate change results in many natural disasters.

The plan was announced at the ongoing U.N. climate summit COP26 in Glasgow and aims to improve weather monitoring and data collection which would help prepare developing countries for the possible disasters.

The U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) aims to improve weather monitoring in 75 small island nations and least-developed countries over the next decade.

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"If you don’t have observations, then you are not able to provide good forecasts," WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.

"We have major data gaps in our observing systems in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific islands and some parts of Latin America," he said.

Climate financing

The new project, which is known as Systematic Observations Financing Facility, comes under the initiative of providing $100 billion a year for climate financing to poorer countries.

Rich nations were unable to meet this goal in 2020 which was criticized in the climate summit at Glasgow.

The details of the project, which is led by the WMO, the U.N. Development Programme and the U.N. Environment Programme, are expected to be announced today.

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Lars Peter Riishojgaard, director of the WMO's Earth System Branch said improved weather monitoring can help nations with longer-term predictability related to climate change.

"If you’re a rural economy with subsistence farming, you need to know: Can people have their livelihoods where they are right now, or do they need to pick different crops?" Riishojgaard said. "If you can’t predict it, you can’t adapt to it."

Picture Credits: Reuters