In an interview with AFP, Celeste Saulo, who has headed Argentina's National Meteorological Service since 2014, expressed great concern that some countries do not understand the effects of emitting more greenhouse gases.
ADVERTISING
But the next leader of the World Meteorological Organization insisted it is not too late to make a change in tackling the climate crisis.
“We don’t have plan B”, declared the Argentinean, 59 years old, who will be the first woman to lead the OMM from January 2024.
“Are we going to wait for a dramatic end or are we going to fight for our children and our future? Let's fight. I am sure of this and I will do it,” she said.
ADVERTISING
The Argentine professor stated that it makes no sense to wait for a “miracle” solution that stops and reverses climate change. “We are the answer,” she said.
“With passion, love, agreements and commitment. It's the only way. We can't see this as a movie, we are in the movie and we can change it. It's our role. It’s a duty.”
Global goals, local actions
Celeste Saulo was elected by a large majority on Thursday (1) as successor to Finn Petteri Taalas, who is at the end of his second four-year term as head of the UN agency.
ADVERTISING
The Argentine woman won the necessary two-thirds majority in the first round, with 108 votes, against 37, seven and four votes for the other three candidates.
She said she was “shocked” by the level of support, but highlighted that it sends a clear message about “the need for change” and new ideas at WMO.
“We are facing a huge global crisis that is the combination of climate change and inactivity”, he declared, before defending actions to reinforce coordination and innovation in the organization.
ADVERTISING
The WMO compiles the work of national meteorological agencies to monitor the evolution of greenhouse gases, sea levels, temperatures, melting glaciers and other climate indicators.
Celeste highlighted that her priority will be to apply the work in the field and cited as an example the WMO's plans for the entire planet to have state-of-the-art warning systems for meteorological catastrophes.
“You need to have global objectives, but local actions,” he said.
In the end, “implementation is about people. And people have their environment, their culture, their needs, opportunities and their dreams. And we have to work for them.”
ADVERTISING
Ela promegive a voice to countries most vulnerable to extreme weather conditions worsened by climate change.
“At WMO, we care about what happens to the least developed world and small island countries. The problem is that we don’t have specific programs to address their needs,” he said.
Argentina also criticized countries with a high level of responsibility for global warming that do not understand the problem of climate change.
“I'm really worried about this. And I will do my utmost in this organization to try to convince these countries that they must make real change to make commitments,” she said.
Scientists are sending “such a clear message: 'stop it.' And I’m really worried that we’re not getting this message,” she explained.
At the same time, she was self-critical and said that OMM should use simpler language to spread its message.
Despite the difficulties, the Argentine expresses optimism.
“We have young people. We have people who want to change things.”
“I'm optimistic because we can start with small actions, demonstrate results and, working together, we will achieve it”.
Read also
* The text of this article was partially generated by artificial intelligence tools, state-of-the-art language models that assist in the preparation, review, translation and summarization of texts. Text entries were created by the Curto News and responses from AI tools were used to improve the final content.
It is important to highlight that AI tools are just tools, and the final responsibility for the published content lies with the Curto News. By using these tools responsibly and ethically, our objective is to expand communication possibilities and democratize access to quality information. 🤖
