Seattle/King County Climate News
Robin Briggs
Seattle
City Council is in the process of appointing a new member to represent District 5. There are a number of candidates for the position, including Nilu Jenks and former Council President Debra Juarez. Council will go on summer break in mid-August and must make the appointment in the next week or so. Meanwhile, there have not been any recent meetings around the Comprehensive Plan or any proposed amendments, and it seems unlikely they would get through that before the summer recess.
County
The County Council is partway through a series of meetings to update the County's Strategic Climate Action Plan in the Transportation, Economy, and Environment Committee. But they will be on recess in August, and the September meeting has been cancelled, so likely they will take it up again after the budget is complete.
Port of Seattle
The Northwest Seaport Alliance announced an incentive program for zero-emission truck and charging deployment in the Seattle-Tacoma gateway. Using a $6.2M grant from WSDOT using CCA funds, the incentives will provide for 19 zero-emission trucks and charging infrastructure. The new charging site will be located near the new I-5 exit ramp just south of SeaTac Airport, and will have charging for 250 vehicles and overnight parking for 70. Zeem Solutions will build it out, and Zeem and its partners will provide a substantial share of the total expenditure. In addition to serving trucks, the Zeem site will serve other fleets operating light-, medium- and heavy-duty electric commercial vehicles. The charging site will break ground this fall, with the ZEVs expected on the road by 2026. This work follows the release in April of the Decarbonizing Drayage Roadmap, which contains "nearly 70 recommendations aimed at making zero-emission trucks more available and affordable, building out the necessary charging and fueling infrastructure, and supporting the drayage trucking community through what will be a challenging transition" and was put together with input from drayage truck drivers.
State
The State released a draft version of the Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CCAP). The plan is to serve "as a roadmap for reducing emissions and building a sustainable future." It has lists of current policies, and suggestions for new policies to reduce emissions. The Dept of Commerce will hold a webinar on it on July 28, at 2pm, and you can make public comment here.
Northwest energy and conservation groups filed a lawsuit asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to review a decision by Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) that would affect the transmission and cost of electric power across the entire Pacific Northwest. The groups filing the lawsuit say BPA’s decision to join Markets+, an energy trading market, will drive up energy bills for customers, weaken energy grid reliability and reduce access to clean energy. This is a climate issue because higher electricity prices will slow down electrification, and a justice issue because the added costs will get passed to ratepayers. The groups suing include Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, NW Energy Coalition, Idaho Conservation League, Montana Environmental Information Centers and Oregon Citizens' Utility Board.
Elsewhere
A report from an insurance broker notes that from January to June this year there were 19 different billion dollar weather disasters with total damages of $134B; most of these damages were from the LA wildfires. A European heatwave at the end of June caused at least 2308 deaths. About 65% of the deaths were a result of human-caused climate change increasing the heat by 1-4 degrees Celsius, which tripled the number of deaths.
The number of people cycling in Paris doubled in one year from 2022 to 2023. Since 2015, Paris has been investing in cycling infrastructure, and turning over space that was formerly for automobiles to pedestrians, cyclists and greenspace. In 2024 they made a $2B investment over four years to improve the cycling infrastructure.