Government of Finland announced the candidature of Petteri Taalas for his second term as the Secretary General of World Meteorological Organisation

Minister of Transport and Communications Ms. Anne Berner arrived to Geneva on 21th June to announce that the government of Finland is glad to nomitate the current Secretary General of World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) Petteri Taalas as a candidate to seek for a reappointment for the next four-year-term from 2020 to 2023. The decision will be made at the 18th WMO Congress in June 2019.

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Minister Berner announcing the candidature in Geneva.

In her speech where the nomination of prof. Taalas as a candidate was formally launched, Minister Berner described the valuable work that Taalas has been doing both as a previous director of the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) and currently as the Secretary General of WMO. During the term of Taalas as the head of FMI, the science and development functions of Finnish Meteorological Institute were developed to a new stage, and new partnerships with universities, other research institutions and weather services in Finland and abroad were built.

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Petteri Taalas presented the work he has been doing in renewing WMO as the current Secretary General since 2016.

Minister also highlighted that Finland has been one of the most active players in sharing its meteorological and climate expertise with other countries as part of the national development agenda for example in Africa, Central America, and Pacific, and prof. Taalas has been actively engaged also in this work. Minister Berner concluded that recognizing the expertise and achievements of prof. Taalas, she, on behalf of the Government of Finland hoped that Taalas would be voted to continue his work as the Secretary General of WMO also after his current 2019 term.

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Secretary-General Taalas, Ambassador Terhi Hakala, and Minister Berner in discussion on climate questions with ambassadors and WMO-representatives .