Miami-Dade County has begun hosting weekly online workshops to roll out an ambitious new plan to cut planet-warming emissions in half over the next decade. By 2050, it hopes to hit zero.
The sprawling blueprint calls for some lofty goals, including reducing residents’ water use by 30% and the amount of trash they send to landfills by half.
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The plan also calls for retrofitting 1.3 billion square feet of old building space to make it more efficient and takes aim at one of the county’s thorniest problems: traffic.
“We are working on adaptation, which is our medicine for climate illness. But mitigation or cutting the emissions is truly the cure,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said in an interview with WLRN Monday. “This strategy is outlining each step of that cure. And so each piece of it is critically important.”
The plan, which also calls for a new facility to convert waste to energy, doesn’t yet have a price tag. That will come once it’s finalized, Levine Cava said.
“Each of these things has their return on investment formula. So installing electric and then saving on gasoline obviously pays off,” she said. “Same with the buildings. The investment infrastructure pays off in reduced energy costs. Transit, clearly it’s a big investment.”
Some costs will be calculated in quality of life, not dollars, she said, and private industry will also cover many costs, like retrofitting old properties.
“This is not just what the county government does. It's the private sector as well and making sure that they’re on board. And there's only some things that can be mandated. Others are market driven. So it's definitely a complicated question,” she said.
She said some businesses are already buying into some changes, like cutting back on parking lots for other uses.
“We've got restaurants that are benefiting from moving out into the streets, so there's a lot of a lot of people that are seeing the benefit of that,” she said.
She said the plan is a solid start for reaching goals needed in a county that, on average, sits just six feet above sea level.
“Once formally adopted, we can do some more cost-benefit analysis,” Levine Cava said, about cost estimates for the plan.
The pandemic also provided important lessons and may have helped shift residents’ priorities. With some issues, like traffic and expanding natural areas to buffer against sea rise, it provided a look at what mitigation efforts could look like.
“Everybody discovered the outdoors,” Cava said. “To me, it's joyful. Every day I see people walking, running, biking, even on scooters, you name it, people are out and about. So I think we have this newfound appreciation.”
To view the draft plan, click here. Online meetings will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 23 and June 30. To register, click here.
