Southeast Florida’s Regional Climate Action: Scaling Solutions Across Communities
Beyond individual cities, Alicia Betancourt’s work in Southeast Florida is laying the foundation for sweeping regional climate action. As a Navigator, a trained climate expert for Climate Ready America, hosted by the University of Florida IFAS Extension, Alicia operates within the Southeast Florida Climate Compact, a pioneering multi-county partnership spanning Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Monroe counties. This region, home to 117 municipalities, is both deeply vulnerable to climate impacts and uniquely positioned to lead. Alicia’s role helps bridge local needs with regional strategy, ensuring that small and under-resourced communities have a seat at the table.
Alicia is part of Climate Ready America’s Southeast Demonstration Project, an initiative led by Geos Institute and supported by the Walmart Foundation. The goal is to demonstrate what is possible when trusted relationships, technical expertise, and community-driven strategies are supported by Navigators like Alicia, acting as key connectors between local leaders and the tools they need to build long-term resilience.
With Alicia’s support, the Compact secured a $1 million grant to develop a Priority Climate Action Plan (PCAP), completed in December 2024. This plan includes a regional greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory, a critical tool for tracking emissions and identifying reduction strategies. For communities that lack the staff or resources to conduct their own inventories, the PCAP provides baseline data and shared methodologies, enabling every municipality in the region to act from the same foundation.
“We made sure that smaller communities could use this plan without having to start from scratch,” Alicia said. “That is the whole point, leveling the playing field so everyone can participate.”
The Compact aligned regional strategies with local concerns using detailed survey data from governments across the four counties. The result is a toolkit of plug-and-play resources: ready-made emissions data, grant-ready templates, measurable goals, and regionally relevant policy frameworks. The Compact has become a resource hub for dozens of communities working to implement climate solutions at their own pace, with shared support.
Alicia and her partners have been diligently developing the next-phase Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CAP). This roadmap goes beyond emissions tracking and digs deeper into adaptation, equity, and community engagement. In parallel, Alicia continues to support implementation workshops across the region, helping local governments translate high-level plans into grounded, actionable projects.
Designed to lower the barrier to entry for small communities, these gatherings connect local leaders with subject matter experts, introduce user-friendly tools, and ensure that insights from one city can quickly inform work in another. The goal is simple: make climate action practical, peer-informed, and within reach for all.
Workshops have included topics like Resilient Florida grant navigation, solar energy readiness, resilience planning for property owners, and interdepartmental coordination. Each session is tailored to the specific needs of Southeast Florida municipalities, offering practical tools that can be applied immediately. These convenings are not just about information sharing; they are about capacity-building, connecting peers, and ensuring communities can access the millions of dollars in funding available for climate resilience.
One of Alicia’s standout contributions is the Compact Climate Assessment Tool (CCAT), an annual self-assessment she helped develop and now facilitates. CCAT allows municipalities to track their progress against regional climate goals, while also surfacing areas where more support or technical assistance may be needed. “It is not just about checking boxes,” she explained. “It is about helping communities see how far they have come and what they need next.”
What sets this regional model apart is its intentional structure. The Compact is not a top-down program; it is a collaborative network with flexible entry points and a shared commitment to lifting all boats. The emphasis on shared data, shared learning, and shared success makes it easier for small communities, those often left out of the climate conversation, to fully participate and benefit.
“We are not reinventing the wheel for every city,” Alicia said. “We are building a system where people can plug in, get what they need, and keep moving forward.”
This regional approach amplifies what works locally and scales it for broader impact. Through Alicia’s efforts, Geos Institute and Climate Ready America are demonstrating that effective climate action does not hinge on isolated pilot projects. It thrives on collaboration, shared learning, and structures that enable even the smallest community to take meaningful steps forward.
The Southeast Florida Climate Compact is fast becoming a national model for how to build a climate-ready region, not by asking communities to go it alone, but by showing what is possible when they have support to move together.
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Robert Macnee, Ph.D. is Deputy Director of Resilience Services at Climate Resilience Consulting, where he helps governments, institutions, and communities reduce climate risk in equitable and practical ways. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Management focused on climate change impacts on health and communities, and brings over a decade of experience spanning economic development, resilience planning, and implementation.
Samantha Medlock is President of Climate Risk Advisors, helping communities and organizations advance equity, sustainability, and resilience. Her career began chasing floods as a local official in Texas Flash Flood Alley—a hands-on experience that still shapes her approach to climate and disaster risk management.
Jim is a multilingual world traveler. Based in Bavaria during the 1970s, Jim spent most of this period in India, Afghanistan and Nepal, where he founded and operated a charitable medical clinic serving Tibetan Refugees. He settled in Oregon in 1983 on a forested ranch in the Umpqua National Forest.
Dr. Micah Hahn is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health in the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies at the University of Alaska-Anchorage. She received her joint PhD in Epidemiology / Environment and Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MPH in Global Environmental Health from Emory University. Subsequently, she was a postdoctoral fellow for the CDC Climate and Health Program, and in this position worked collaboratively with the CDC Division of Vector-borne Diseases and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Her research focuses on understanding the health impacts of climate change and working with communities to develop locally-relevant adaptation and resilience-building strategies. Dr. Hahn is also on the Management Team of the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center.
Michael is a former Founding Principal of Resilient Cities Catalyst, a global non-profit helping cities and their partners tackle their toughest challenges. He is currently the Executive Director of Climate Resilience Academy at the University of Miami.
Dr. Quintus Jett is a consultant, educator, and strategist for public causes. He has a doctorate in Organizations & Management from Stanford University, and a two-decade faculty career which spans schools, departments, and programs of business, engineering, liberal studies, divinity, and public and nonprofit management. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Dr. Jett launched a volunteer project in New Orleans, which enlisted residents, students from over a dozen colleges and universities, and hundreds of others to field map the city’s Gentilly district, Lower Ninth Ward, and New Orleans East. Dr. Jett is an innovator in higher education, bridging the divide between academic research and the other priorities of the modern university, including student access and diversity, community engagement, and providing foundations for life-long learning in today’s rapidly changing world.
Scott is Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. He has written about 100 publications in the peer-reviewed climate literature, is a former editor of the Journal of Climate, and served for five years as founding Science Chair of the North American Carbon Program.
Linda has many years of experience in disaster preparedness and resilience. She has been an elected official on the Linn County Iowa Board of Supervisors, Chair of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the East Central Iowa Council of Governments, the statewide Mental Health Developmental Disability and the Linn County Board of Health. Langston is a former president of the National Association of Counties (2013-2014).
Ken works with families and organizations as a mediator, organizational consultant, trainer and facilitator. Along with his passion for helping people prepare for and reduce climate change, Ken also volunteers as a mediator through Mediation Works and is passionate about supporting youth through mentoring with Boys to Men of Southern Oregon.
Matthew is a retired high school teacher who was once honored as Oregon High School Social Studies Teacher of the Year. Before his teaching career he was in the restaurant business in Portland. He is also a lawyer who has been a member of the Oregon State Bar Association since 1980.
Andrea is the Resilience Policy Advisor for the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency. She works across state agencies and with local governments to increase the state’s resilience to the impacts of climate change.