Wood, Lautenbacher, Adam, Shirakawa, Jarraud and Valette

The GEO Secretariat is the overall steering committee and coordinating body for all GEO activities, and is responsible for drafting the Ten-Year Implementation Plan for a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).

The WMO is a United Nations Specialised Agency, located in Geneva, Switzerland. It is the UN’s authoritative voice on the state and behaviour of the Earth’s atmosphere, and its interaction with the oceans and climate.

GEO Co-Chairs Conrad Lautenbacher, Rob Adam and Tetsuhisa Shirakawa were joined by WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud, GEO Secretariat Executive Director Helen Wood, and Pierre Valette, Director for Environmental Research at the European Commission’s DG Research.

WMO headquarters in Geneva; Image © WMO

The Standing Arrangement, agreed on just moments earlier at the sixth GEO plenary, reads: “WMO will provide GEO free of charge with office facilities for up to ten staff according to applicable standards and provide additional space, if required…”. This means that the GEO Secretariat finally has a permanent home. Since the creation of the GEO in 2003, the Secretariat has been temporarily housed in Washington, DC.