Publications

WMO High Mountain Summit Call to Action: Avoiding the Impending Crisis in Mountain Weather, Climate, Snow, Ice and Water - Pathways to a Sustainable Global Future

03.12.2019

The participants at the High Mountain Summit 2019 following engaging presentations and inter- and trans-disciplinary dialogues, have committed to the goal that people living in mountains and those living downstream shall have open access to and use of ‘fit-for-purpose’ hydrological, meteorological and climate information services that address their need to adapt to and manage the threats caused by unprecedented anthropogenic climate change, recognizing the importance of mountain regions as home of the cryosphere and source of global freshwater.

The Summit concluded with a Call to Action, which includes a roadmap of priority actions, as a living document. The participants committed, as a matter of the greatest importance, to an Integrated High-mountain Observation, Prediction and Services Initiative with user-centred goals, building on existing knowledge and activities, with international coordination and multidisciplinary approaches. This initiative will consist of a series of collective, intensive campaigns of analysis and forecasting demonstration projects in key mountain ranges and headwaters around the world, including those with transboundary foci. The initiative will make it possible to co-design solutions, build capacity, support and facilitate investments by actively engaging information users, providers and producers to address the most pressing issues of climate, cryospheric and hydrological change in support of natural hazard risk management and adaptation in mountain regions and downstream.

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