Global television audiences who tuned in for their local weather reports last Thursday were in for a surprise – a special forecast from the year 2050.
While the format is familiar, the forecasts – anchored by children – are not.
These young TV meteorologists joined the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for its newly Weather Kids campaign, created in partnership with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and The Weather Channel, the flagship consumer brand of The Weather Company.
Supported by global celebrities and UNDP Goodwill Ambassadors, including Oscar-winning Malaysian actor Michelle Yeoh, American actor Connie Britton and Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.
The campaign is part of UNDP’s efforts to boost awareness on the impacts of climate change and to mobilize people around the world to take meaningful climate action for future generations.
UNDP Administrator, Achim Steiner, in a statement issued on Sunday in Abuja, following the inauguration of UNDP’s Weather Kids Climate Change Awareness Campaign project.
The campaign, according to Steiner, was organised in partnership with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and Weather Channel.
He added that the Weather Kids campaign was part of UNDP’s efforts to inspire public conversation and mobilise action on climate change, on the road to COP30 climate negotiations to be held in Brazil in 2025.
According to him, the campaign is part of efforts to promote awareness about the impacts of climate change and mobilise people, globally, to take action to safeguard future generations.
“Weather Kids adds a powerful voice to sensitising people about the future danger of climate change.
“Continued inertia on climate change will lead to an increasingly uninhabitable planet for the ‘kids of today’ and future generations.
“We can only course-correct, if we move at a speed and scale that includes decarbonising our economies and advancing access to affordable and clean energy for all.
“By doing so, we will also be protecting and restoring our natural world and empowering communities to have their say in their countries’ climate pledges.”
Steiner further explained that Weather Kids, underpinned by UNDP’s extensive work on climate change and climate action, was being aired on news channels in not less than 80 countries.
He said that the programme was designed to enable weather report television viewers to see the projected forecasts every day.
He added that this was developed using data from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and UNDP’s human climate horizon data platform.
According to him, the global reach is possible through collaboration with WMO and Weather Channel, the flagship consumer brand of the Weather Company.
Steiner explained that COP30 would mark the conference’s 10th anniversary since the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
He added that it would also enable countries to align with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
He described the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) by countries across the world as the core of the global fight against climate change.
“The newly established UNDP Climate Hub delivers the UN System’s largest portfolio of support on climate action in nearly 150 countries.
“UNDP’s flagship Climate Promise initiative has supported action to tackle global warming by working with 85 per cent of the world’s developing countries on their NDC submissions,” he said.
