Miami-Dade County Greenhouse Gas Inventories

• City: Miami-Dade County
• Size and population development: 2,686,867 (2023) 2,758,636 (2022) total from 2010 to 2022 there was a 10.50% increase in population. With a population exceeding one million people, the unincorporated area, if declared a city, would form the largest city in Florida and one of the largest in the nation.
• Population composition: Almost 70% of Latino/Hispanic population: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/miamidadecountyflorida
• Main functions: Miami-Dade County is a major international hub with a strategic location for trade, hosting a significant number of foreign consulates and multinational corporations, and excelling in international freight and passenger traffic through Miami International Airport and the Port of Miami.
• Main industries / business: Healthcare, Retail, Hospitality & Tourism, Education, Construction.
• Political structure: Miami-Dade County operates a two-tier governance system, with county-level and municipal-level governance across 34 incorporated municipalities. Each municipality provides services to its residents and businesses, occasionally contracting with the county for service provision. The Board of County Commissioners made up of thirteen elected members serve as the legislative body of Miami-Dade County.
• Administrative structure: The Mayor who is elected every 4 years provides oversight of the day-to-day operations of Miami-Dade County, including administration of all County government departments. The number of departments typically fluctuates between 25 and 30.
• Website: https://www.miamidade.gov/global/home.page

Miami-Dade County has implemented several initiatives to reduce GHG emissions. On September 1, 2022, the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners (BCC) updated the Ordinance and Implementing Order for the Sustainable Buildings Program (SBP). These updates modernize the SBP, streamline compliance for county projects, and align with best practices for sustainable design. The revised SBP enhances overall sustainability, particularly for infrastructure projects, with benefits including reduced air pollution, energy burden, maintenance costs, and improved resilience, health, and economic impacts.

Key updates to the SBP include:

1. Clarifying green building requirements for public projects, including public/private partnerships.
2. Expanding applicability to infrastructure projects using the Envision Rating System.
3. Adding resilience and sustainability requirements to ensure consistent goals.
4. Clarifying procedures for substitute standards.
5. Introducing a new BCC waiver process.

Since 2007, the SBP has saved over 100,844,488 kWh of electricity and $3.7 million in energy costs across 63 projects, reducing GHG emissions by over 71,700 metric tons of CO2e. The program is expected to achieve at least $24 million in additional energy savings by 2030.

Miami-Dade County maintains a robust emissions data set and inventory methodology, crucial for measuring emissions, taking effective action, and monitoring progress towards emissions reduction goals. The County follows the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Inventories (GPC) to ensure credible GHG accounting, standing peer-to-peer with other communities using the GPC standard globally. With over three decades of inventory experience, Miami-Dade has refined its methods to include all critical emissions sources.

The County uses ClearPath, a cloud-based emissions management tool developed by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), to conduct GHG inventories including scope 1, 2 & 3. ClearPath supports reporting under the GPC standard, facilitating credible emissions accounting and reporting. It also allows the County to forecast future emissions scenarios, set mitigation goals, create climate action plans, and track progress.

Miami-Dade reports GHG emissions totals in CO2 equivalent (CO2e) to standardize the impact of various greenhouse gases like NO2, CH4, and CO2. The County's inventories undergo third-party verification by ICLEI technical advisors, who conduct quality assurance and control reviews, adding independent rigor to the emissions accounting process.

Over the last 30 years, Miami-Dade County's GHG reduction programs have included the Long-Term CO2 Reduction Plan (1990), the creation of the Climate Change Advisory Task Force (CCATF; 2006), membership in the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) pilot program (2007), participation in the U.S. Cool Counties Program (2008), the joint establishment of the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact (2009), and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Race to Zero Program (2021). The assistance of ICLEI has been key through the ClearPath tool.
 

While these programs have helped guide Miami-Dade's climate action, the County's GHG emissions inventories including scope 1,2, & 3 serve as critical measurement tools to achieve measurable, data-driven emissions mitigation efforts across all sectors of the community and economy.

Miami-Dade County publishes a comprehensive countywide and communitywide greenhouse gas inventory on the county website every two years. The county also shares information about opportunities for public engagement and progress being made on the Climate Action Strategy through its award-winning Resilience Newsletter, social media, and through partnership with multiple community-based organizations.

Miami-Dade County, to date, has always conducted its own greenhouse gas inventories, analysis, and projections using its own staff time and expertise.  County staff expertise is augmented by the expertise of International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), to which the County belongs to through a paid membership subscription.

In November of 2022 Miami-Dade County was recognized for its work on its inventories by being placed on the CDP Cities A List, based on environmental data disclosed by local governments to CDP-ICLEI Track. Only one in ten local governments scored by CDP (12% of such local governments) received an A.  Out of 1002 municipalities who applied for this scoring, only 120 US and Canadian municipalities received this recognition.  

One of the main challenges associated with the change in methodology was that our reported emissions went up and posed a challenge in how this was communicated to leadership and the public.   It can be difficult to tell the story in a way that shows the progress made. There is also a challenge in how we deal with emissions outside of our control, including for example, all of the fuel distributed at the airport or seaport when people are traveling to and from Miami-Dade County. Not all emissions are tied to the population in the community and that is challenging to capture and communicate.

There are also significant challenges in comparing emissions metrics among the various municipalities within the County. There are also challenges in collecting and capturing data regarding emissions, and uncertainty around carbon sink calculations. We have also faced barriers of including difficult to capture data such as emissions from refrigerants.

• Miami-Dade County Greenhouse Gas Emissions Overview  https://www.miamidade.gov/global/economy/resilience/climate-strategy/emissions.page#:~:text=The%20total%20Community%2DScale%20GHG,%2C%20respectively%20(Figure%204).

• Miami-Dade County Climate Action Strategy https://www.miamidade.gov/global/economy/resilience/climate-strategy/home.page

• Miami-Dade County Climate Action Strategy Progress Reporthttps://www.miamidade.gov/environment/library/resilience/2023-04-cas-progress-report.pdf

Jason Grant
Senior Energy Resilience Program Manager
Miami-Dade County Office of Resilience
Jason.Grant@miamidade.gov
(786)641-3911