SAN MATEO, Calif., May 11, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Jupiter, the global leader in climate analytics for resilience and risk management, today announced its support for greater federal coordination of climate information services that will facilitate the sorely needed planning and development of more robust and resilient critical infrastructure across all sectors of society.
Jupiter supports the formation of a new Federal Climate Service (FCS) that would be responsible for a coordinated federal strategy to provide critical climate data and analytics to support a wide range of stakeholders and constituencies. Jupiter emphasized its support for the new FCS in a letter submitted into the Record for the hearing, “Working Towards Climate Equity: The Case for a Federal Climate Service,” held on April 21, 2021 by the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s Environment Subcommittee.
The letter stated, “Jupiter has consistently recommended that the federal government consider requiring the incorporation of future conditions into the design and construction of any physical asset it owns, funds, subsidizes, or regulates. Undertaking this step alone would represent enormous progress, especially for national security, government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), and critical infrastructure sectors. Jupiter strongly recommends that, wherever possible, the federal government should leverage the extensive private sector investments to date in climate services and seek consistency with information used by the private sector. Doing so also will help leverage and optimize federal support, and provision of financial and technical assistance, to state and local governments, especially to underprivileged and/or underserved or under-resourced communities.”
Jupiter’s public sector work has accelerated under the Biden-Harris administration, with risk planning and resilience projects underway or complete with the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and multiple other entities within the Executive Branch as well as grant funded work with the National Science Foundation and NASA. Jupiter also recently submitted responses to a formal request from the Federal Housing and Finance Administration (FHFA) for input on managing climate-related risk. Jupiter’s response noted, “Most (legacy climate risk management tools) use 30-year-old, backward-looking risk management models and approaches that do a poor job of accounting for how risk has already changed and continues to worsen due to climate change. They often do not consider the ongoing impact of climate change (also referred to as “future conditions”) on assets with durations over one year.”
Jupiter also emphasized the need for better governance, stating: “At the highest level, FHFA should ensure that there are Board, CEO and senior executive commitments to understand, manage, reduce, and disclose risks and uncertainties associated with climate change,” said Rich Sorkin, CEO of Jupiter. “In many cases throughout the global financial system, this fundamental aspect of corporate governance has not yet materialized.”
Jupiter Adds New Expertise, Office to Address Needs of Public and Private Sectors
As Jupiter’s federal interests grow, the company has begun recruiting for its new Washington, D.C. office. Jupiter has also added several board members and advisors to help focus on the company’s public sector relationships. Recent additions include:
- Neal Wolin, Member of the Jupiter Board of Directors - Former Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and President and COO of The Hartford’s property and casualty insurance companies, currently CEO of Brunswick Group.
- Katie McClain, Member of the Jupiter Board of Directors - Former VP of Public Affairs at Invenergy and Director at the William J. Clinton Foundation. Current Investing Partner at Energize Ventures.
- Jesse M. Keenan, Advisor - Global expert on the intersection of climate change adaptation and the built environment, and former climate adaptation research lead with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and member of the Climate Risk Committee of U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Wolin, McClain, and Keenan join Jupiter’s world class leadership team and existing advisors, including:
- Todd Stern, Co-founding Advisor - Former United States Special Envoy for Climate Change and United States Chief Negotiator, 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
- Josh Hacker, Chief Scientist and Co-founder - Former NCAR Director Joint Numerical Testbed Program, Science Lead for National Security Applications Program and expert in weather and climate applications for DoD and NOAA.
- Pat Harr, Full-Time Senior Science Fellow and Weather Analyst - Former Chair, American Meteorological Society (AMS) Committee on Hurricanes & Tropical Meteorology and Atmospheric Section Head at the National Science Foundation (NSF).
- Sherri Goodman, Advisor - Former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense (Environmental Security) and Senior Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center.
- Greg Douquet, Advisor - Former Chief of Staff, Marine Forces in Europe/Africa; Co-Founder Red Duke Strategies - climate risk for military/municipal infrastructure.
- Ladeene Freimuth, Advisor - Former Energy & Environmental Aide to Sen. Byron Dorgan and Rep. Frank Pallone; Former Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
“Critical infrastructure sectors and government need to do more to enhance emergency preparedness, planning, and resilience to reduce the risks of impacts from extreme weather that touch nearly every urban and rural area of the nation,” said Sorkin. “Jupiter understands many of the public and private sectors’ needs with respect to risk and climate information
and supports the formation of the Federal Climate Service, and other public-private partnerships that will help secure America’s future.”
About Jupiter
Jupiter is the global market, science, and technology leader in physical climate analytics for risk management and resiliency planning. Its analytics are used across the private and public sectors: customers include at least one of the world’s five largest firms in asset management, banking, chemicals, insurance, minerals and mining, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, power, and reinsurance—as well as critical departments and agencies within both the United States government and climate-change-vulnerable geographies around the world. Jupiter’s ClimateScoreTM Intelligence Platform provides sophisticated, dynamic, hyper-local, current- hour-to-50-plus-year probabilistic risk analysis for weather in a changing climate. The company’s FloodScore™, HeatScore™, WindScore™, FireScore™, and ClimateScore Global™ services are used for climate-related risk assessment and management worldwide. Jupiter’s models are based on the latest science, as developed by the global Earth and Ocean Systems science community.
Jupiter offers commercial services to asset owners in critical infrastructure, financial services including insurance, banking and asset management, energy and real estate, and the public
sector. These customers use Jupiter services for a broad range of applications, including capital planning, risk management, site selection, design requirements, supply chain management, investment and asset valuations, and shareholder disclosures. For more information, please visit jupiterintel.com.
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Hugh Moore
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