The Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact Staff Steering Committee
Southeast Florida sea-level rise compact a model for other regions
The editorial board of the Miami Herald wrote a wonderful piece about the leadership demonstrated by our partners in the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact, which featured quotes from Steve Adams, ISC’s Director of Urban Resilience. Steve has been supporting the Compact since its inception ten years ago.
ISC is working to bring this model to other regions throughout the United States and Asia.
From the editorial:
This ground-breaking collaboration among southeast Florida’s local governments is a bright spot in a dispiriting history of inaction against an ever-more alarming threat.
And in a state with the overwhelming majority of it residents living within 10 miles of its more than 1,300 miles of vulnerable coastline, our region’s compact needs to be repeated elsewhere — and quickly.
That means government and business leaders in Southwest Florida, Northeast Florida, the Tampa Bay area, the Florida Panhandle and Treasure Coast are on the clock.
Just a month ago, the United Nations released a brutal alarm: We have just 12 years to limit global warming to moderate levels. If we don’t slash carbon emissions, the world soon will be far worse in terms of famine, disease, economic tolls and refugee crises.
And just last week, scientists reported that the oceans have been soaking up far more excess heat in recent decades than scientists realized, suggesting that Earth could be set to warm even faster than predicted.
Our region’s Compact is a rare embrace of that reality.
“We’re using common, science-informed planning projections to guide public policy; we’ve built quite a lot of resilient infrastructure and we’re actively learning from each other as we get ready to build more,” says Steve Adams, a leader of the Institute for Sustainable Communities, who has helped lead the compact.
“Most importantly, we’ve built and continue to build the relationships necessary to advance this region toward a more sustainable, resilient region for all. We’ve got a great deal more to do — this process is far from perfect — but we’re not starting from zero as we were 10 years ago.”