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When the Compact was established in 2009, Broward, Miami Dade, Monroe, and Palm Beach counties committed to reduce the region’s emissions and develop an emissions baseline for Southeast Florida. The Compact’s Regional Climate Action Plan 3.0 established a region-wide goal to reach net zero emissions by 2050, and the Compact is developing a regional greenhouse gas reduction plan through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant, which will be completed in December 2025. A regional greenhouse gas emissions inventory is integral to developing informed emissions reduction strategies, providing a baseline against which local governments can compare future performance and monitor the region’s progress over time. 

The Compact worked with ICLEI USA to conduct a comprehensive regional greenhouse gas inventory, which provides a summary of community-wide emissions trends across Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe, and Palm Beach counties for 2019 and 2021. The inventory includes emissions from commercial, residential, and industrial stationary energy; transportation and mobile sources; solid waste; water and wastewater; and agriculture and land use. The inventory assesses all major greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O), and also includes sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), hydrofluorocarbons, and perfluorocarbons emissions.

Over the two-year period, the region demonstrated a 7.4% decrease in overall emissions while population growth was less than 1.0%. In both 2019 and 2021, the largest sources of emissions in the region are transportation (50% in 2019; 48% in 2021), commercial buildings (14% in 2019 and 2021), and residentials buildings (14% in 2019; 15% in 2021). The decrease in overall emissions over this two-year period is likely a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on transportation patterns.