The World Meteorological Organization has warned that the Global Climate Observing System, known as GCOS, is weakening because funding is unstable and large areas go unmeasured. GCOS tracks more than 50 essential climate variables across the atmosphere, the ocean, the cryosphere and the land. The world spends close to 10 billion dollars a year on climate observations, yet the basic weather observation network is less than 40 per cent in place, and parts of the western Pacific have no moored buoys working near the equator. A draft GCOS High-Priority Action Plan sets three priorities: protecting essential observing capabilities, closing gaps and safeguarding data, and sustaining international coordination. The plan and a forthcoming GCOS Status Report are out for public review and are due to be published in February 2027. WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said coordination costs about 10 million dollars a year while closing the gaps would cost about 500 million dollars a year.
Essential climate variables tracked:more than 50Spent on climate observations each year:close to $10 billion
Why it matters for exams: It names GCOS, the WMO Secretary-General and the Systematic Observations Financing Facility.
SOFFSystematic Observations Financing Facility — A fund that helps the least developed countries and small island states improve basic weather and climate observations.
The Bank of Canada has released the summary of its Governing Council's deliberations on the rate decision announced on 28 October. The Council weighed two choices, holding the policy rate at 2.25 per cent or raising it to 2.5 per cent, and chose to raise it. The argument for holding was that the rise in inflation was concentrated in energy prices and energy-dependent services such as airfares, with consumer price inflation excluding gasoline at 2.2 per cent and core measures close to 2 per cent. The argument for raising was that fuel prices were far above their July level and cost pass-through to consumers was likely to grow, raising the risk of broad and lasting inflation. The Council said monetary policy cannot lower world energy prices but can stop them turning into generalised inflation. Governor Tiff Macklem presided, with Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers and four Deputy Governors attending. Members agreed a further increase could be needed but said they would decide one meeting at a time.
New policy rate:2.5%CPI inflation excluding gasoline:2.2%
Why it matters for exams: It fixes the Bank of Canada's policy rate, its Governor and the Governing Council that decides the rate.
Governing CouncilGoverning Council of the Bank of Canada — The body of the Governor, Senior Deputy Governor and Deputy Governors that takes Canada's monetary policy decisions.
The Joint Committee set up under the Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union met in Brussels. It was co-chaired by Hamish Falconer, the United Kingdom's Minister for Intergovernmental Relations and European Relations, and by European Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič. The committee adopted three decisions, on social security coordination, on artificial intelligence and on forced labour, and approved the Joint Committee Annual Report for 2025. Two of the decisions add newly adopted European Union acts to Annex 2 to the Windsor Framework, which governs trade arrangements for Northern Ireland. The co-chairs also welcomed a Joint Declaration on the application of Article 5 of the Windsor Framework, which treats handling fees on consumer parcels in the same way as customs duties. Whether to add the Cyber Resilience Act to the framework was discussed without a decision, and technical work on the Protocol relating to the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus is to be finished by the next meeting.
Decisions adopted:ThreeVenue:Brussels
Why it matters for exams: It fixes the Withdrawal Agreement Joint Committee, the Windsor Framework and the European Commissioner who co-chairs it.
Windsor FrameworkWindsor Framework — The revised arrangement between the United Kingdom and the European Union for trade and regulation in Northern Ireland.
Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, has written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Healey, asking that the maximum authorised size of the Asset Purchase Facility be reduced. The ceiling is to come down from 524.9 billion pounds, the figure agreed in an exchange of letters on 5 May 2026, to 482.4 billion pounds, which the Chancellor has been asked to confirm. That is the level of the facility's gilt holdings as on 4 November 2026. The Bank said gilts with redemption dates before 2035 will not be sold, and that 120 billion pounds of the longest-dated gilts will stay in the facility to indirectly back the issue of banknotes now and in future. The ceiling is to be reviewed again in six months, together with the quarterly report on the facility. The facility is the vehicle through which the Bank bought government bonds under quantitative easing, and the Treasury indemnifies it.
New APF ceiling:£482.4 billionPrevious ceiling:£524.9 billion
Why it matters for exams: It fixes the Bank of England's Asset Purchase Facility, its Governor and the office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Climate watching rests on a set of agreed measurements called essential climate variables. The Global Climate Observing System, or GCOS, tracks more than 50 of them across the atmosphere, the ocean, the cryosphere and the land. The ocean part of this work is carried by the Global Ocean Observing System, whose Status Report 2026 sets out where marine monitoring has improved, where the gaps are and what is at risk. Moored buoys near the equator are among the instruments that matter most, because they are how scientists watch El Nino take shape in the Pacific. The World Meteorological Organization notes that the world spends close to 10 billion dollars a year on climate observations, and that the basic weather observation network is still less than 40 per cent in place.
Basic weather observation network in place:less than 40 per cent
Why it matters for exams: It fixes what essential climate variables are, and the two observing systems, GCOS for climate and GOOS for the ocean.
Movements of hazardous wastes across borders are controlled by the Basel Convention, and its control system rests on prior informed consent, the PIC procedure. Its own Implementation and Compliance Committee, at resumed sessions of its seventeenth meeting from 12 to 16 October 2026, has completed the activities under its current work programme and sent a package of recommendations to the Conference of the Parties. The Committee worked with 15 Parties that were having difficulty with obligations such as adequate legislation and national reporting. It finalised a template to help Parties set up national coordination between competent authorities and enforcement agencies, which is aimed at illegal traffic in wastes. Two of its documents were brought up to date as well: the Manual for the Implementation of the Basel Convention, and also the Guide to the Control System. National reports came in from 72% of Parties for 2022 and from 70% for 2023, so the targets set by the Conference of the Parties were met again. The Committee agreed follow-up steps to improve the PIC procedure, including a revised national reporting format and a web-based tool for updating designated contacts. It will resume the seventeenth meeting in 2027 to go on helping individual Parties out of compliance difficulty.
Parties helped by the Committee:15Parties reporting for 2022:72%Committee:Implementation and Compliance Committee
Why it matters for exams: What the Basel Convention controls, its prior informed consent procedure, the Ban Amendment on exports to other Parties and the Conference of the Parties as its decision body are the durable treaty facts.
PICprior informed consent — The Basel Convention's rule that a hazardous waste shipment may move only after the states of import and transit give written consent.
Ban Amendment — The amendment that prohibits hazardous waste exports from the listed developed Parties to States outside that list.
A forum of supervisors, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision sets the global standards by which banks are regulated. It is hosted by the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, and works through what is called the Basel Process. Its 45 members are central banks and bank supervisors from 28 jurisdictions. It exchanges information on the banking sector and financial markets to spot risks to the global financial system. Guidelines and sound practices go with those standards. The full set of its standards is called the Basel Framework. Basel III sits inside that framework, and the Committee monitors how it is being put in place, so that internationally active banks face a level playing field. Its published data covers the Countercyclical capital buffer (CCyB) and Global systemically important banks (G-SIB).
Members:45Jurisdictions:28Host institution:Bank for International SettlementsBody of standards:Basel Framework
Why it matters for exams: The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, its 45 members from 28 jurisdictions, its home at the Bank for International Settlements and the Basel Framework are standard banking-awareness facts.
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB, is a multilateral development bank. Its stated mission is Financing Infrastructure for Tomorrow, in Asia and beyond. It began operations in Beijing in 2016 and now has 111 approved members. The bank is capitalized at USD100 billion. Three major credit rating agencies rate it AAA. On its Board of Governors each member has one governor and one alternate governor. A nonresident Board of Directors is responsible for its general operations. AIIB holds Permanent Observer status at the General Assembly of the United Nations and at its Economic and Social Council, granted in 2018.
Why it matters for exams: The AIIB's headquarters at Beijing, its start of operations in 2016, capital of USD100 billion and Permanent Observer status at the United Nations are the facts examiners use.
BIMSTEC came into being on 06 June 1997, when four countries signed the Bangkok Declaration. It began as BIST-EC, and those four - Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand - all border the Bay of Bengal. Myanmar joined on 22 December 1997 and the group became BIMST-EC. Bhutan and Nepal came in in February 2004, and at the First Summit in Bangkok on 31 July 2004 the group took its present name: Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation. That makes seven Member States. A decision at the Third BIMSTEC Summit in 2014 set up the BIMSTEC Secretariat at Dhaka, Bangladesh, in the same year. Work started in 1997 in six sectors - trade, technology, energy, transport, tourism and fisheries - and widened in 2008. Since 2021 the sectors have been reorganised into seven, each led by a Member State, with trade and development under Bangladesh, environment and climate change under Bhutan and security under India.
Member States:sevenSecretariat:Dhaka, BangladeshSet up by:Bangkok DeclarationYear the Secretariat was set up:2014
Why it matters for exams: The number of BIMSTEC Member States, the city where its Secretariat sits and the declaration that set it up are the facts that recur in general-studies papers on regional groupings.
BIMSTECBay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation — A regional grouping of seven countries around the Bay of Bengal.
WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, administers 28 treaties, counting the WIPO Convention itself. They fall in three groups. The first sets agreed basic standards of intellectual property protection in each country, and holds the Paris Convention, the Berne Convention, the Rome Convention and the Patent Law Treaty. The second group, the global protection system treaties, lets one international registration or filing take effect in the signatory States an applicant chooses. It holds the Patent Cooperation Treaty, the Hague Agreement, the Lisbon Agreement, the Budapest Treaty and the Madrid Protocol. The third group, the classification treaties, orders information on inventions, trademarks and industrial designs: the Nice Agreement, the Locarno Agreement, the Strasbourg Agreement and the Vienna Agreement. WIPO also keeps a table of which country is party to which of these treaties. Its agreements with the United Nations and with the World Trade Organization, and TRIPS, are listed apart from the 28.
Why it matters for exams: How many treaties WIPO administers, the three groups they are sorted into and which treaty carries a single international patent filing are the durable facts here.