We would like to update you on the outcomes from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) International Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Symposium that took place at WMO Headquarters in Geneva on 30 January-1 February 2023.

The Symposium was targeted primarily at entities involved in greenhouse gas observations, modelling, data assimilation and related research in all domains of the Earth System. Symposium was held as one of the milestones in a wider attempt to build an internationally coordinated, operational global greenhouse gas monitoring system across all domains. This activity presents an opportunity for our community to further our own efforts towards a sustained, internationally coordinated routine greenhouse gas monitoring infrastructure with a broad group of stakeholders from scientific, operational, and policy-setting entities. 170 participants discussed current status and ways forward across a wide range of topics related to building such a monitoring system. The full Symposium agenda with most interventions available for viewing and download can be accessed from the Symposium website: https://community.wmo.int/en/meetings/wmo-international-greenhouse-gas-monitoring-symposium.

IOCCP played a central role in coordinating the ocean carbon community in providing input to the agenda, filling the agenda with relevant content and developing key messages to be conveyed during discussions at the venue. Our collective presence was pleasantly plentiful in terms of number of attendees as well as their interventions across topical sessions and panel discussions. Participants of the Symposium agreed to develop and distribute the attached Symposium Statement where relatively high level description of the current situation and recommendations for further actions can be found. Participants of the Symposium agree to build the implementation of this activity on WMO’s experience with the Global Atmosphere Watch and the Integrated Global Greenhouse Gas Information System.

Specific action items leading to the implementation were agreed to be developed by a dedicated working group consisting of a broad range of stakeholders across United Nations agencies, international programs, national and sub-national governments and the private sector. WMO has discussed this initiative during its 76th Session of the Executive Council which took place from 27 February to 3 March 2023, and cross-domain collaboration on developing specific actions should start shortly.