Tampa Bay, FL (March 2024) – The TBRPC’s Clean Air Tampa Bay program has completed its first program milestone. Through collaboration with local stakeholders, the team has submitted the Priority Climate Action Plan (PCAP), the first regional assessment of greenhouse gases (GHG) for the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).
Funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Climate Pollution Reduction Grants (CPRG) Program, the project team comprised of TBRPC staff, University of South Florida’s Patel College of Global Sustainability, ICLEI- Local Governments for Sustainability, and the Sustany Foundation, has been working on identifying ways to reduce GHGs and other pollutants within the MSA.
This Priority Climate Action Plan (PCAP) is a preliminary analysis of the MSA’s climate profile. It includes a greenhouse gas inventory, GHG emission projections, a benefits analysis, a low-income/ disadvantaged communities’ benefits analysis, as well as a review of GHG reduction measures and how to implement them. It is estimated that through reduction measures in the transportation and energy sectors (such as renewable energy transitions, increasing energy efficiency, expanding public transit, and transitioning to electric vehicles), regional carbon emissions can be cut by over 60%.
With the PCAP submitted, the Clean Air Tampa Bay Team is now working to engage stakeholders in communities throughout the MSA, to develop the Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CCAP) due in August 2025.
