The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has launched a global climate action campaign in partnership with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and The Weather Channel.

The campaign, titled 'Weather Kids', features children presenting weather forecasts from the year 2050, aiming to highlight the potential impacts of climate change.

With support from global celebrities and UNDP Goodwill Ambassadors, including Oscar-winning Malaysian actor Michelle Yeoh, American actor Connie Britton, and Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the campaign encourages people to sign a pledge on behalf of the child or children in their lives to take urgent climate action on a specially created website.

The Weather Kids campaign is part of UNDP's efforts to inspire public conversation and mobilise action on climate change on the road to the COP30 climate negotiations to be held in Brazil 2025. It is underpinned by UNDP’s extensive work on climate change and climate action, with the newly established UNDP Climate Hub delivering the UN System’s largest portfolio of support on climate action in nearly 150 countries.

The Weather Kids will air on news channels in more than 80 countries around the world, including Brazil's TV Globo, USA's CNN, CNBC, Weather Channel, ABC News, and Univision, Canada's MeteoMedia, and Italy's RAI Television.

UNDP Administrator, Achim Steiner, said, “The Weather Kids add a powerful voice to alert us to a future that will certainly materialise if we do not take meaningful climate action today.”

World Meteorological Organization Secretary General, Celeste Saulo, said the campaign was a call to urgent action for people and the planet.

“The climate crisis is THE defining challenge that humanity faces and is closely intertwined with the inequality crisis. The year 2023 was by far the hottest on record, as were the last 9 years. Extreme weather events are increasing, and have huge socio-economic impacts - heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and intense tropical cyclones. Ocean heat and sea level rise are accelerating. Sea ice is melting, and we risk losing glaciers which are so vital for our precious water supplies and ecosystems. Meteorological and hydrological services and scientists worldwide are sounding the Red Alert and are scaling up efforts to deal with the challenge. Our decisions today will shape the future of many generations to come."