Regional Kansas City Climate Action Plan Update
MARC and project consultants have been spending the summer months updating strategies included in the 2021 Regional Kansas City Climate Action Plan. Based on feedback and requirements of the EPA Climate Pollution Reduction Grant, it was clear that we needed to simplify, simplify, simply. The original plan included 66 strategies and staff worked to reduce that number by consolidating strategies and actions while focusing on clarity and incorporating additional feedback from stakeholders. The final slate of strategies will include all of the ideas in the original plan while slimming down the total number, making measuring progress much easier.
These strategies are in the process of being modeled by consultants which will help us identify targets for each sector and calculate the impact (in terms of emissions reduced), as well as total costs, workforce needs, air quality benefits and benefits to low income communities.
The Greenhouse Gas inventory is now complete. This analysis tells us how many millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (MMTCO2e ) our 9-county region produced in 2023 and divides those emissions by sector. Our total emissions is 27.185 MMTCO2e with the majority of those emissions coming from electricity generation, energy used in buildings and transportation. Waste and industrial processes and product use account for a smaller percentage of the total.
Also complete is a new tool—called the Kansas City Regional Extreme Weather Impact Map— that will help local government and neighborhoods assess risk areas of socioeconomic stress and community-scale improvement efforts around the Kansas City region. This tool includes an update to MARC’s socioeconomic stress index and contains data and locations of facilities like public service buildings, transportation infrastructure, and other community assets.
The map also shows other data relating to hazardous conditions and public health. A handy impact map calculator was included to make finding socioeconomic data by census tract easy. Clicking on one tract will calculate data such as numbers of acres in a floodplain, number of EV chargers, acres of parkland and households with limited English proficiency. This tool was created for MARC’s Hazard Mitigation Plan, the Climate Action Plan Update and the neighborhood resilience assessment process as part of MARC’s Community Problem-Solving grant from the EPA.
Community engagement continues to build on engagement conducted as part of the development of the Priority Climate Action Plan. This summer, we have discussed issues and new ideas with hundreds of residents at community events and met with local government staff and community organizations. We will continue to pop-up around the region to talk to members of the community over the next few weeks and will host public meetings when the final draft of plan is available in early Fall.
If you are interested in a presentation about this work, please reach out to Kate Ludwig.