By Emma Farge and Olivia Le Poidevin
GENEVA (Reuters) -The World Meteorological Organization urged action to close gaps in a global system of surveillance meant to protect people from extreme weather, saying on Monday that such early warnings were particularly needed in developing countries.
Convening a special meeting in Geneva, the WMO said that in the past five decades, weather, water and climate-related hazards have killed more than 2 million people, with 90% of those deaths occurring in developing countries.
WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo has made boosting early-warning systems a priority but still only 55% of countries have built up the surveillance capacity, data from the U.N. weather agency shows.
“Many millions of people lack protection against dangerous weather which is inflicting an increasing toll on economic assets and vital infrastructure,” the WMO said in a statement.
The number of countries using early-warning systems has doubled in three years to 119. But a WMO assessment of 62 countries showed half of them possess only basic capacity and 16% have less than basic capacity.
However, the WMO is seeing progress in Africa, including Mozambique and Ethiopia, with more countries having functioning websites and issuing standardized alerts.
“Early warning means early action. Our goal is to not only warn the world it is to empower it,” Saulo said in a opening speech to the conference in Geneva.
Deaths from disasters are six times higher and the number of people affected is four times higher in countries with limited multi-hazard early warning systems, the WMO has found.
The head of Switzerland’s Federal Department of Home Affairs, Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, told delegates at the conference that no country or region was spared from the impact of climate change and extreme weather.
She pointed to the example of how the regular monitoring of a mountain glacier allowed scientists to warn about its imminent collapse in May 2025, allowing for the evacuation of the Swiss village of Blatten.
“Permafrost melt will inevitably lead to more glacier collapses and rockfalls,” making early warning systems vital, she said.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin and Emma FargeEditing by Frances Kerry)
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