KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City, Missouri, City Council voted Thursday to pass the KC Climate Protection & Resiliency Plan.
According to the plan, the goal is to "achieve climate neutrality by reducing greenhouse gas emissions for city operations by 2030 and citywide by 2040."
For the last two years, city leaders, staff, professional consultants and climate protection steering committee developed the 133-page plan.
“Climate action cannot wait, and I am proud, after years of work, Kansas City today took bold action to protect our children’s and our grandchildren’s futures,” KCMO Mayor Quinton Lucas said in a press release. “This plan is more than just a list of tactics to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — it will serve as a bedrock of community-based climate action prioritizing and elevating our historically marginalized communities, centering equity every step of the way."
The plan contains several numerous short and long-term goals which will impact six sectors.
This includes:
- Rapidly decarbonizing buildings citywide and electrifying city-owned buildings to improve reliability of energy supply, improve air quality, and help lower energy bills;
- Establishing an environmental justice advisory committee;
- Intervening in state regulatory proceedings to advocate for the city’s electricity provider, Evergy, Inc., to retire its Hawthorn coal plant by 2025 and all its coal plants by 2030; and
- Establishing a short-term implementation plan to help Kansas City take immediate steps to implement the CPRP.
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