Tampa Mayor Jane Castor announces climate change action plan - WFLA
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor announces climate change action plan | WFLA
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Tampa Mayor Jane Castor announced a long-range climate change action plan on Friday.
The plan outlines more than 140 initiatives for city buildings, infrastructure and energy use for the city.
Castor says climate change is real and must be planned for.
“It really is reaching the stages of being critical, so we have to ensure that our buildings, our roads, our infrastructure are all designed with sustainability in mind,” Castor said.
Whit Remer is the city’s Sustainability and Resilience Officer. He says climate change in this area is measurable.
“The St. Pete tide gauge has shown about 8 inches of sea level rise already since 1940. So, sea level rise is already here. Now, our projections show between two and eight feet of sea level rise by 2100,” said Remer.
He says the city must plan for that sea level rise going forward.
“If you’re a city planner or someone who builds infrastructure in the city, that’s a very big difference. In the state of Florida, that’s a monumental difference. So, we have a lot of challenges ahead of designing in a way that we are not over spending, over designing, but we are doing so in a way that is keeping up with the best science that is available to us. We’re going to see pumps, we are going to see houses, we’re going to see infrastructure that is ultimately going to be built higher. We are going to have to get used to some of this flooding if we are going to continue to live on the coast,” Remer added.
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