For the Record: Second Thoughts on Early Warning, Early Action (EWEA), EW4All, or EWEA4All?

Abstract

Over the past four decades, people around the globe have experienced unprecedented escalations in the frequency, intensity, magnitude, and location of anomalous hydrometeorological (hydromet) hazards attributed in large measure to the direct and indirect effects of global climate-change-related variability and extremes. The WMO, impelled by an unabated warming of the global climate system and its related extremely anomalous hydromet impacts, chose in March 2022 “Early Warning, Early Action” (EWEA) as the theme for its World Meteorology Day. The theme was praised in a press release by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who called for the development of a new EWEA initiative to ensure that “every person on Earth is protected by early warning systems within five years”. By mid-2022, several meetings and workshops had already been held by the WMO to forge the new initiative on its road to the UN Climate Conference of Parties (COP27) in November in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. COP27 provided a suitably prominent venue for launching the new USD 3.1 billion, 5-year EWEA initiative; there, Secretary-General Guterres formally tasked the WMO, in partnership with the UNDRR, to lead it. But COP27 proved to be interesting as well as illuminating in other, less publicized ways having to do with EWEA. There, what had been the working title of the new initiative was officially changed to EW4A, “Early Warning for All”. Despite the seemingly perfunctory nature of this change, the reality is that it will almost certainly have outsized impacts on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and constraints (SWOC) met specifically in planning and implementing the new initiative’s “early action” strategies and tactics. It is particularly important to bear in mind that, as things now stand, various unanticipated challenges having to do with the lack of organizational experience and capacity with regard to “early action” are likely to arise with the WMO-led implementation of the new initiative. Considering the new EW4A acronym as if it was a commercial brand can, like this, be instructive in thinking about how the seemingly perfunctory name change—from EWEA to EW4A—will impact the initiative’s implementation of “early action”. Doing so can be instructive because, just as the logos of companies like Apple, Nike, or Starbucks eventually became the face of their respective products, so too have branded acronyms like NASA, IOC, WHO, and INTERPOL become the face of their governmental institutions’ or global initiatives’ respective commissions and commitments. It follows then that if “consumer” interest is to be taken seriously and is (hopefully) long-lasting, then the branding of a new product or initiative must be undertaken with great consideration before a final identifier—be it a logo, a catchphrase, or an acronym—is selected. The question in the case of the new WMO-led initiative, then, is the following: Was this issue seriously taken into consideration before EWEA was so abruptly replaced by EW4A at COP27 in Egypt in November 2022? This pointed question is especially meant to highlight how the continued use of the original EWEA acronym by way of developing regional EWEA centers under the “Early Warning for All” umbrella has the possibility of turning regional potential energy into kinetic energy which will be essential if the theoretical gains of future “early warning” (EW) forecasting science are to be effectively translated into “early action” (EA) strategies and tactics that actually, finally, protect people and property across the entirety of the earth from the impending severe impacts of our changing climate future. Thus does this paper raise valid concerns about the balance between support and funding for EW and EA.