Washington now has a comprehensive, statewide climate action plan.
The effort was launched three years ago using a federal grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. State leaders unveiled the plan as they marked Earth Day just outside Tacoma in Pierce County.
The plan aims to provide a roadmap for achieving the cuts to greenhouse gas emissions mandated by state law. The goal is to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
“This is about action, right?” said Casey Sixkiller, the director of the Washington State Department of Ecology. “It's not just about having a plan that makes us all feel good and it sits on a shelf somewhere and no one does anything with it. It’s how we put action behind those words.”
The new state climate plan is nearly 400 pages long. Sixkiller said individual communities can use it for guidance as they develop new policies or seek grants for projects to reduce their emissions.
Pierce County hosted the unveiling and the first of several roundtable discussions about the plan. More will take place over the next six to eight months.
Speaking at the county’s Environmental Services Building overlooking Puget Sound, Executive Ryan Mello asked representatives of Pierce County communities to talk about any barriers that might get in their way. Tacoma Port Commissioner Kristin Ang jumped right in.
“Show me the money!” Ang exclaimed to much applause.
She had just given an update on extensive work the ports of Seattle and Tacoma have done to move away from diesel and other toxic marine fuels.
“We do have a plan, but all of this takes funding,” she said.
Ang said the ports still need “billions” to make the transition away from dirty fuels, even though they have already installed electric shore power at three shipping terminals in Tacoma and Seattle and launched a pilot project to electrify short-haul trucking.
Ang said she has often asked to speak nationally and internationally about the successes of the Northwest Seaport Alliance with this transition. But she still finds all the work needed to meet state goals mindboggling, especially with new demands from data centers that power artificial intelligence.
Nathe Lawver, Secretary-Treasurer of the Pierce County Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, expressed enthusiasm about the potential for thousands of new jobs expected to be created by the clean energy transition.
“These are jobs that can pay good wages, have career pathways – and keeping people in Pierce County working in Pierce County, because that's another great environmental move,” he said.
Others on the roundtable shared the need for more technical assistance and reform of the grant-making process for smaller communities. The state Department of Commerce administers the grants.
Officials said funding for the transition could come from the state Climate Commitment Act and other sources. The state Department of Ecology released an update on its work to reduce emissions on Friday, showing that despite population and economic growth, the state’s total emissions declined 0.5% from 2021 to 2022.
The Earth Day festivities came in the wake of a data entry error earlier this year that caused the Department of Ecology to greatly overestimate the impact of Climate Commitment Act Spending.
Officials working on the net-zero goals say the state has a broad policy framework to get off of carbon-based fuels.
