Public-Private Partnerships can Accelerate the Delivery of Urgently Needed, Accessible Information on Climate Risk

Tackling a complex challenge like climate change requires harnessing the best talent, data, and tools from both government and industry, working together to support a comprehensive array of climate services needed to inform actions. Given the unprecedented, recently appropriated public funding of the Nation’s infrastructure, there is an immediate need to apply highly specific, quantifiable, trustworthy physical climate risk information to build resilient infrastructure that can withstand both increasing extreme events and insidious changing baselines. While government labs running climate models produce coarse resolution output, private sector has begun filling the need for climate intelligence at a finer scale relevant to socioeconomic impacts. Recent recommendations highlight the critical role of the federal government to provide climate services and the need to enhance partnership with non-federal producers and users of these services. Such collaborations can improve delivery of actionable products to maximize taxpayer return on investment from government spending. While several US Federal agency tools have been developed for projecting changes in heat, water, and other environmental indicators at Census tract resolution, contributions to those tools from collaborators in industry or academia are limited, as is their utility for individual or industry applications. Meanwhile, the growing portfolio of private sector tools may lack full transparency or be prohibitively expensive for smaller communities. Bringing the best capabilities of the government and the private sector to factor acute and chronic environmental risks into planning quickly can improve effective use of this public investment.