Greenhouse Gas Inventories

The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) effect is a well-documented process that contributes to a variety of environmental issues, including the acceleration of climate change, local and regional pollution and related impacts. Cities, counties and municipalities are among the most common units of scale used to understand and measure greenhouse gas emissions activity. To reduce these emissions and mitigate their impacts, Miami-Dade County seeks to measure and track GHG emissions to identify which activities generate emissions, how these patterns change over time, and implement solutions to reduce GHG emissions.

Miami-Dade County has long been a recognized leader in its commitment to reduce GHGs and has implemented numerous programs and policies over the years. This includes programs such as the original Long-Term CO2 Reduction Plan (1990), 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), and the joint establishment of the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact (2009). Miami-Dade County has been tracking GHG emissions across the county since the first emissions inventory.
The County’s ability to determine its GHG emissions, take effective action and monitor progress towards emissions goals depends on maintaining a robust emissions data set and inventory process. Miami-Dade County practices credible and reliable greenhouse gas reporting by utilizing an independent third-party protocol - the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Inventories (GPC). Our inventories are conducted using the cloud-based ICLEI tool ClearPath, and include a comprehensive review of activity within the County’s geographical boundaries for a calendar year. This includes data from a number of sectors, including Residential Energy, Commercial Energy, Industrial Energy, Transportation and Mobile Sources, Solid Waste, Water and Wastewater and more.

These inventories target two scales of analysis: Community and Government. The Community-Scale Inventory presented here includes all emissions activity occurring within the geographic boundaries of Miami-Dade County. This scale is useful in assessing the effectiveness of community-wide programs targeting a variety of sectors. In contrast, the Government-Scale Inventory is focused on understanding emissions related to County government operations. This supplement to the Community Inventory helps the County government act as an emissions reduction leader and develop policies or practices that target emissions specific to government operations.

Miami-Dade County GHG inventories are conducted every other year, and currently calendar year 2017 (CY2017) is the most recently completed Community-Scale Inventory. Delays in data availability often result in a two-year lag for completing GHG inventories. The County is currently working to complete a government-scale inventory for 2017, and both inventory scales for 2019.

Current Findings

The results of the 2017 county-wide inventory indicate that GHG emissions have increased 11percent between 2008 and 2017. These changes have largely been driven by increases in emissions from the Transportation sector. However, interpreting changes in emissions data over time can be difficult due to the effects of changes in inventory scope and methodology. For example, a change in inventory methodology between 2010 and 2013 resulted in a more holistic accounting for transportation emissions, which appears as a large increase between inventory years. Finally, while the net trend since 2008 has been an overall increase, a 2 percent decrease in total emissions was observed between 2015 and 2017, indicating an improvement in emissions reductions during this two-year period.

Miami-Dade County reports emissions in CO2 equivalent, or CO2e, a metric standard of measurement that is used to aggregate emissions from a variety of greenhouse gases such as NO2, CH4, and CO2 on the basis of their global-warming potential. Miami-Dade County reports emissions in CO2e to enable standardized understanding of impacts of all greenhouse gases accounted for in the inventory process, in keeping with the GPC inventory best practices. The most recent Community-Scale inventory results for 2017 are below:

Miami-Dade County 2017 GHG Inventory
Sector	Metric Tons CO2e
Transportation & Mobile Sources	17,720,918
Commercial Energy	5,241,733
Industrial Energy	5,439,356
Residential Energy	4,863,774
Solid Waste	1,308,529
Water & Wastewater	4,979
Process & Fugitive Emissions	120,271
Total	34,699,560

This infographic visually summarizes the emissions data and trends tracked so far between 2008 and 2017. Miami-Dade County Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Inventory: Key Findings 2008-2017.

In addition, the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact also provides a regional GHG emission summary of trends for transportation and stationary energy sources from across four counties – Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe.

Miami-Dade County and its communities must implement innovative solutions to reduce the emissions identified in these GHG inventories. The County’s 2010 GreenPrint plan outlined some of Miami-Dade County’s top greenhouse gas emissions reduction efforts. GreenPrint 2.0, the County’s update to the original GreenPrint plan, is currently in progress and will provide updates on the County’s latest suite of strategies being pursued to ensure a healthy, equitable and resilient Miami-Dade County community for future generations.

In addition, the 2017 GHG Inventory revealed an average per capita emissions rate of 12.79 Metric Tons of CO2e per Miami-Dade County resident. With the largest sources of emissions coming from the Transportation, Residential and Commercial sectors, every member of the Miami-Dade County community has a role to play in reducing our personal carbon footprint. Examples of individual emissions reduction efforts include using public transportation, reducing electricity usage and improving the energy efficiency of homes and businesses.