KLA Perspectives

Most plans don't need a rewrite. They need to be used. Here's how to tell the difference. 

Your climate action plan is a few years old. The dates are slipping. The targets feel further away than ever.

So the instinct kicks in: it's time to update the plan.

You budget for it. $50,000 on the low end. $150,000 if you want the full treatment. Twelve to eighteen months of meetings, inventories, and drafts. And at the end, you have a brand new document.

Here's what most other consultants will not tell you: An update is not the same as progress. And most communities do not need to start from scratch, they need to tighten up their existing plan.

A plan update restarts the clock. It buys another year of process while emissions keep climbing and your residents keep waiting. The climate crisis does not abide by your procurement cycle.

So before you spend a dollar updating anything, do something faster and almost free. Run the plan you already have through KLA’s six question Plan Assessment Tool. It tells you in an afternoon whether your problem is the plan or whether the plan is solid and just needs sharper focus on the actions that actually move the needle.

Why one of KLA's signature engagement tools is a perfect way to
leverage limited resources to tackle the climate crisis  

Youth Climate Lawsuits Inspire, Underscore Need for Urgent Action

(We're looking at you, local government leaders)

Note: Kim also wrote about this recently on LinkedIn. Connect with her there and with KLA!

“Eighteen young people represented by Our Children’s Trust and Public Justice filed a motion for stay in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, asking the court to pause the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Repeal Rule, which rescinded the 2009 Endangerment Finding and eliminated all greenhouse gas emission standards for vehicles, while their constitutional petition is litigated on the merits.” 

These youth are why we do what we do. They inspire us. They remind us what we’re fighting for.

Eighteen young Americans -- students, Tribal and Native youth who come from rural and coastal communities across 10 states -- have taken this extraordinary legal action because they don’t really have a choice. Their futures (and ours, btw) are at stake.

They are speaking up at a time when it can be risky to do so, when the political winds can be hostile, and the institutions meant to protect them are being dismantled.

That’s not just bravery. That’s necessity.

Climate change is not a distant or abstract threat for these young people. It has literally been a part of every day of their lives. For those of us born in the 1900s, let that sink in. These kids have no memory of a stable climate on this planet. If the EPA abdicates its responsibility to act, the long-term prospects for this generation are genuinely bleak.

This is not a political issue or an environmental issue. It’s a human issue. We must step up to protect where we live and what we love.

What KLA is Doing

Stop Slow Rolling Your Plans and Achieve Real Results 

Does any of this sound familiar to you?

• We’ve got a climate plan that hasn’t translated into real results
• There’s a mandate to show measurable progress, but not a ton of time (or funding) to get it done
• Our rebate/incentive program for heat pumps isn’t gaining traction
• Municipal operations account for less than 5% of our community’s emissions, but our efforts are often focused on that small piece of the pie
• Our climate action plan is due for an update, but we’re wondering if that’s worth it
• We dumped all our community outreach resources into developing the plan but have done minimal engagement during implementation

We hear this ALL. THE. TIME.

Frankly, it’s why we developed ActionReady™. If our mission is to elevate local climate action to match the urgency of the climate crisis, we have to recognize and tackle the barriers. We can’t rely on the same old planning processes. You shouldn’t rely on consultants who just check boxes and deliver outputs vs. outcomes.

We encourage you to find a few minutes sometime soon to watch the recording of our ActionReady™ Info Session that Kim hosted in May.

Key Takeaways from Our Popular APA #NPC26 Session 

Apparently telling planners at the National Planning Conference “Nobody Cares About Your Plan” is a sure fire way to pack a room. 

That was the title of my session at APA’s #NPC26 in Detroit last weekend that drew a standing room only crowd of about 150 people. Looking out at the packed space, I got quite a laugh with the opener “wow, that’s a lot of plans nobody cares about.” 

But it hit on a pain point that most planners and local government staff share: the same people show up again and again, and it’s a struggle to reach beyond the choir. 

Here are some of the high notes from my session. We've also woven these core concepts into our new ActionReady™ program that you can learn more about here.

People aren't making the decisions that matter for climate action on April 22. 

When we raise the dignity of our public discourse,
we raise our ability to solve real problems like the climate crisis

As seen in Kim's recent LinkedIn post.

In January 2026, I heard Tim Shriver speak about the Dignity Index at the Massachusetts Municipal Association conference in Boston. I left genuinely energized, and I said publicly that I’d come back for a deeper dive.

I’m coming back to it now for two reasons:

• First, because many of us who work with or in local government are feeling the strain of public discourse. In a recent LinkedIn post, I shared that I’m “done… just done” with the contempt that can dominate public life. That post resonated widely not because people are fragile, but because people are tired.
• Second, because the Dignity Index team has now released a major new research product: the nation’s first-ever Dignity Barometer, conducted in February 2026, which puts numbers to what many of us experience every day.

Are You Scratching the Surface or Moving the Needle?

We’re all guilty of writing the mile-long to-do list and then cherry picking only the easiest things. Or looking at the 37 items and shutting down entirely. The lack of prioritization and the default “laundry list” mean we don’t always accomplish what we really need to.

That’s true for household chores and work tasks. And it also applies to so many climate action plans we’ve seen.

Science-based targets aren’t resolutions. They are not optional, and neither are the outcomes.

Wrapping up 2025 and our Five-Year Partnership with Clark County 

As 2025 is coming to a close, so is our five-year partnership with Clark County, Nevada. KLA’s long-term collaboration with Clark County exemplifies our mission to build local capacity to drive measurable outcomes from climate action.  

Of course, we delivered the signature KLA services: Regional GHG Inventory, Climate Vulnerability Assessment, and two sustainability and climate action plans (one for government operations and one for the community). But, because this was a five-year endeavor in a community fresh on the climate action scene, we also had the opportunity to take our focus on capacity building to the next level.