Climate Change Preparedness Program

About the Program

Category: County Resiliency (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

The Charles County Climate Preparedness Program is a whole-of-government approach to addressing an increasingly acute community challenge. Major lines of effort include mitigation by reducing our carbon footprint as well as increasing our ability to adapt to a changing climate. Mitigation efforts include renovating county buildings for energy efficiency, proactively sourcing electric power from renewable sources, and increasing EV charging stations. Adaptation efforts include specifically identifying climate change impacts via a series of planning products, establishing an unprecedented and unique culture of climate competency within the workforce, reorganizing to create a nonprofit government instrumentality finance authority particularly to complete climate resiliency projects, and using partnerships to improve capabilities and innovation with like-minded state, federal, academic, and nonprofit entities.