About

What we do?

Climate change threatens us all and water is the primary vehicle through which we feel its impacts.

To effectively address both water and climate challenges, we must bring climate change and water to the same table – into the same conversation: Tackling them as one. The Water and Climate Coalition is a community of multi-sectoral actors, guided by high-level leadership and focused on water action, making this happen.

We are seriously off track to meet the current goals of the water-related SDGs, especially SDG6 and we are nowhere near ensuring resilient water adaptation to climate change as well as demographic and socioeconomic development for the future.

A major obstacle to providing efficient and sustainable water solutions is the lack of information about the currently available water resources, future availability, and demand for food and energy supply. Decision-makers are faced with the same dilemma when it comes to flood and drought risks.

Today, 60 % of WMO Member States report declining capabilities in hydrological monitoring and thus in the provision of decision support in the water, food, and energy nexus. More than 50 % of countries worldwide have no quality management system for their water-related data in place. Only about 40% of countries worldwide have good flood and drought early warning systems operational. Political decision-makers around the world lack a trustworthy information base in order to make decisions that have legal consequences on river basin scales. This situation is unacceptable in the 21st Century and seriously threatens the sustainable development agenda.

The UN SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework defines five key areas to be addressed for achieving the Sustainable Development Goal for Water and Sanitation. These areas are:

Figure 2: Visualizing the SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework action pillars from The Sustainable Development Goal 6 Global Acceleration Framework

  1. Data and Information

  2. Capacity Development

  3. Financing

  4. Innovation

  5. Governance

Who we are?

The Water and Climate Coalition consists of the leaders and the members. The leaders of the coalition lead the change for a more resilient world by bringing the Integrated Water and Climate Agenda to the global political arena and providing high-level guidance to the members of the coalition. The members consist of a diverse group of organizations and individuals who collaborate on concrete activities to tackle water and climate challenges. These activities can be found on the Activity Marketplace. One of the major outputs of the Water and Climate Coalition is to support in developing global water information services to monitor and predict global hydrological conditions for a climate ready world.

The Water and Climate Coalition is supported by a Secretariat currently hosted by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva, Switzerland.

When were we founded?

The Water and Climate Coalition was founded in 2020 by 10 UN Entities (WMO, FAO, IFAD, UNDP, UNECE, UNEP, UNICEF, UNU, UNESCO, WHO) and GWP to address the gaps identified in the UN SDG6 Global Acceleration Framework. The Water and Climate Coalition supports the implementation of the Framework with a focus on all the five key areas. 

Water and Climate Coalition Secretariat

Stefan Uhlenbrook

Director, Hydrology, Water and Cryosphere

Nicolas Franke

Coordinator for WCC Secretariat and Water and Climate Leaders

Maria Kosonen

Coordinator for Members and Activities

Matthias Berninger, Senior Vice President, Public Affairs and Sustainability, Bayer

Matthias Berninger

Matthias Berninger (born 1971) is a former German politician and member of The Greens from 1993 until 2007.
From 2001 to 2005, Berninger served as Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection under minister Renate Künast in the second cabinet of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. After leaving the government, he was his parliamentary group’s spokesperson on economic policy from 2005 until 2007.
Since 2019, Berninger has been serving as head of public and government affairs at Bayer.