Opening Address - Extraordinary Session of the World Meteorological Congress (Cg-Ext 2025)

Mr. President of WMO, Dr Abdulla Al Mandous,

His Excellency Mr Daniel Chapo, President of Mozambique,

Her Excellency Ms Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, Federal Councillor of Switzerland

Her Excellency Ms. Sara Aagesen Muñoz, Third Vice President and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge of Spain

Excellencies, Honourable Ministers, Permanent Representatives with WMO, colleagues, dear friends,

Let me first recognize and sincerely thank Federal Councillor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider and the Government of Switzerland for their steadfast support to multilateralism and to the World Meteorological Organization. We are deeply grateful for the announcement you have just made:  a strong and tangible demonstration of Switzerland’s commitment to the WMO, to International Geneva, and to the collective work that binds us together.

Allow me to begin with a word that carries the weight of seventy-five years of shared history: thank you. 
Thank you to all who, across generations, have lived this Organization with plenitude, with commitment, and with a profound sense of duty. 

To those who built observing networks where there were none, who exchanged data across borders even in difficult times, and who kept alive the conviction that collective effort can save lives. 

And thank you, personally, for the privilege of serving as Secretary-General of WMO at this precise moment — a moment that connects us with the past and invites us to shape the future with the same devotion that guided those before us.

We meet here in Geneva, in the heart of the multilateral system, for an Extraordinary Session of the World Meteorological Congress — a Congress both commemorative and forward-looking. 

It marks 75 years of WMO as a specialized agency of the United Nations, and 152 years of international cooperation in weather, water, and climate — a collaboration that has grown in scope, complexity, and ambition.

Over time, our community expanded its focus from the atmosphere to the interconnected Earth system, where the dynamics of air, water, ice, and land shape one another and influence every aspect of our life. 

And we have also evolved in purpose: from systems centered on producing forecasts to systems designed around people and their capacity to act.

This is not just a long history; it is a living one. 

A history built by scientists and observers who, in mountain stations and river basins, turned the monitoring of our planet into a collective act of service — proof that knowledge, when shared, becomes the strongest bridge between nations and generations.

When our predecessors founded the International Meteorological Organization in 1873, they did so in a world without satellites or supercomputers — yet they already understood that no country could face the weather, the water, or the climate challenges alone. 

That conviction gave rise to one of the greatest achievements of international collaboration: the free and open exchange of meteorological data — a principle that sustains every forecast made today.

And today, that same idea travels the world in seconds — data collected from every region, transformed into guidance that you can hold in your hand. 

Behind that simple gesture lies an immense and often invisible infrastructure: the observing and prediction systems of WMO, sustained by the dedication of our Members and adapted to diverse needs and capacities around the world.  

This architecture not only protects people; it strengthens productivity, supports food security, and underpins the sustainable growth our societies depend on.

Throughout these seventy-five years, WMO has turned scientific progress into collective capacity. 

Take, for example, tropical cyclones. For about half a century, WMO’s Hurricane Committee in the Americas and the ESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee in Asia have brought together forecasters, researchers, and disaster managers — coordinating observations, harmonizing standards, and integrating new technologies as they emerged: first radar, then satellites, now AI-enhanced modelling. 

Each year, their joint work helps countries prepare better, respond faster, and learn from one another — transforming what could have been isolated national efforts into regional and global systems of anticipation.

Every generation of this Organization has faced its own challenges — and has answered them not with despair, but with cooperation and creativity. 

When droughts and floods tested societies, Members improved hydrological monitoring and forecasting together and created new strategies to manage extremes and their impacts.

That same spirit drives the ongoing transformation of WMO — building a single value cycle, from observation to service, strengthening scientific integration across the Earth system, and empowering our regional delivery to turn global knowledge into local benefit. 

This is the essence of our mission: to turn uncertainty into foresight, and foresight into action.

This year marks the halfway point of the Early Warnings for All initiative, launched by the UN Secretary-General in 2022. 

Three years on, the results are tangible: the number of countries with advanced multi-hazard early warning systems has more than doubled, reaching 119 by 2025. 

But success is not only measured in numbers — it is measured in lives protected, in trust built, in communities empowered to act before disaster strikes. 

And yet, we know that we must go further. Early warnings must reach deeper — into classrooms, into economies, into public policy — so that they guide anticipation, not only reaction. 

Later today I will present my Call to Action. And in that call I invite all partners to strengthen country ownership, close the digital divide, and scale up regional cooperation — so that by 2027, early warning truly means early action 
Because our goal is not only to warn the world — it is to empower it.

As we enter the era of artificial intelligence, our challenge is to lead with vision and ethics. 

Technology can accelerate progress, but only human intervention can give it direction. 

We must continue to invest in National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, the backbone of this architecture; to value our staff and the youth who bring new imagination; and to honour those who, often quietly, keep stations running and data flowing even in the most difficult conditions. 

They are the true custodians of global cooperation.

The Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti once wrote:  "No te creas que estoy solo, aunque esté solo, soy multitud. "

This line captures the essence of the WMO community. 

Each of us represents an institution, a country, a discipline, a human being — yet together we form an interconnected living system, always attentive to the world we serve. 

To all Members: you are the heart, the history, and the future of WMO. 

To our staff: your professionalism sustains this Organization every day. 

To our partners across the UN system, in academia, in international organizations and the private sector: your collaboration extends our reach and multiplies our capacity — proving that no single institution can meet today’s challenges alone. 

And to the young professionals and students following this Congress: the future will depend on your curiosity and your sense of solidarity.

What unites us is not only science, but a shared belief that knowledge can change lives.

Over seventy-five years, our Organization has witnessed the emergence of the defining challenge of our century: climate change, whose signals we have measured and translated into action — yet the work is far from complete. 

The climate crisis tests not only our models and systems, but our capacity to work together — to share knowledge, to act with fairness, and to ensure that adaptation and resilience reach those who need them most. 

If the next seventy-five years are to be worthy of the first, they must be years of shared responsibility for the planet we observe, forecast, and protect.... together.

If we honour the past by acting boldly in the present, the next seventy-five years will not only extend our legacy — they will redefine what collective intelligence can achieve for humanity.

Let us continue, together, to transform knowledge into safety, data into dignity, and cooperation into peace.

Thank you.