Bellingham is not on track to meet its carbon pollution minimization goals, city council members learned during a Monday Climate Action Committee Meeting.
The goals, established by the city’s initial Climate Action Plan in 2007 and updated in 2018, call for the city to reduce overall carbon pollution by 40% by 2030 and 85% by 2050, compared to baseline measures taken in 2000.
Meeting those goals will now be a significant challenge, according to the city’s Climate and Energy Manager Seth Vidana, as emissions continue to “plateau” in the city.
“We missed our carbon pollution target for 2020,” he told council members during a presentation Monday. “Our current and our future carbon pollution targets are becoming more challenging to reach over time due to this plateauing of emissions.”
In order to meet the 40% reduction by 2030, the city aimed to reduce carbon emissions to under 600,000 metric tonnes by 2020, a goal they missed by approximately 25%. In 2020, emissions remained between 700 and 800,000 metric tonnes.
The city of Bellingham has not met established carbon pollution reduction goals and is not on track to meet goals set for 2030 and 2050. (Image courtesy of the Bellingham City Council)
Though the city’s population continues to grow, emissions are trending steadily, which could be a positive sign, Vidana said.
“Carbon pollution per person has reduced over time as we have absorbed more people into the community,” he said.
Per person, emissions have declined significantly in Bellingham, with the average person emitting 11.5 metric tonnes of carbon pollution per year in 2000, and only 8 metric tonnes per year in 2021.
Despite the overall reduction per person, Vidana said the city is still losing ground in the battle against carbon pollution. There are several steps Vidana said are critical for the community to reduce carbon pollution levels moving forward.
“First, we need to reduce our use of liquid fuels by electrifying our transportation system, getting people biking, bussing and walking,” he said. “Second, we need to reduce our use of natural gas for electrification of our homes and businesses, and make them more efficient with the energy they do use. Third, we need to decarbonize the electricity that we use here in Bellingham.”
Additionally, Vidana said policies and funding resources will need to change significantly at the local, state and federal levels to meet future targets.
The goals established by the 2007 and 2018 climate action plans were described as “aspirational” by Bellingham Mayor Seth Fleetwood.
“[Previous plans] have been more aspirational, and we’re hoping the next one is going to be much more of an action plan that actually directs our activities,” he said during Monday’s meeting.
Vidana agreed.
“The past plans we’ve put together have been great collections of ideas on what we can do,” he said. “[We hope to] remove the ‘Here’s what we could do,’ and replace it with ‘Here’s what we need to do.’”
The next iteration of the Climate Action Plan will be released in late 2023.
This story was updated at 8:45 p.m. on Nov. 7, 2022 to correct a statement indicating the city of Bellingham has spent “hundreds of millions” of dollars on its Climate Action Plan. The hundreds of millions figure is an anticipated cost to the city over several decades if it implemented its entire Climate Action Plan. The Cascadia Daily News regrets the error.
