King County unveils ‘ambitious’ plan to combat climate change over next decade
Aug 27, 2020, 12:12 PM
Amazon and other tech employees walkout during the Global Climate Strike on September 20, 2019 in Seattle, Washington. (Karen Ducey/Getty Images)
(Karen Ducey/Getty Images)
King County Executive Dow Constantine unveiled a new climate change proposal Thursday, which would cut the region’s greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the decade.
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The proposal, dubbed the 2020 Strategic Climate Action Plan, looks to establish a “stronger focus on climate justice” in King County. It details a five-year roadmap, including plans to construct greener buildings, connecting those buildings to transit options, increasing tree canopies, and honing in on communities “disproportionately impacted by climate change.” The county also hopes to reduce emissions from county-owned vehicles by 45% in the next five years.
“Climate change is impacting King County today, deepening inequities and intensifying natural hazards – flooding, wildfires, extreme heat – that put people, our economy, and our environment at risk,” Executive Constantine said in a news release.
Constantine also detailed a plan to cut countywide emissions by 80% by 2050, while investing $25 million in acquiring 25 new green spaces to meet its goal of increasing the prevalence of tree canopies.
The roadmap was laid out with the expectation that ongoing climate change will have King County experiencing “heavier rain events, hotter summers, lower snowpack, increased flooding, sea level rise, and greater risk of wildfires” in the coming years.
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“The county’s climate plan is ambitious and, we believe, deliverable,” Cedar Grove Director Karen Dawnson said. “Climate change requires thoughtful, strategic, and aggressive actions and this plan lays those out in a way that ensures the county will protect its citizens, its businesses, its schools and institutions, and its treasured natural environment.”
This action plan comes after the county met several climate-related goals it had previously set in 2015. Those goals included transitioning transit vehicles to clean, renewable energy, focusing residential development in urban areas, reducing energy use by over 20% since 2007, advancing “transformational state energy policies,” and strengthened coordination with other Puget Sound counties and cities on climate preparedness.
