On Earth Day at Mini Mart City Park in Georgetown joined by nearly 75 community, governmental, and business partners, Mayor Bruce Harrell issued an Executive Order directing City departments to respond to Seattle’s current and future climate challenges with a focus on building resilience, growing a green economy, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from transportation. The Executive Order calls for a suite of new actions, meaningfully updating the City’s current Climate Action Plan (CAP) for the first time since its release 12 years ago in 2013.
“Climate change is impacting more parts of daily life than it did a decade ago. Hotter summers are making living and working more uncomfortable and often dangerous. Severe storms are damaging infrastructure and flooding homes, pollutants are worsening air quality, and much more,” said Mayor Harrell. “By signing this Executive Order, I am directing City departments to work as One Seattle with our community, governmental, and business partners to develop a new Climate Action Plan laying out long-term actions to build a more resilient City, create good-paying green jobs, and protect the health of our communities.”
Key aspects of the Climate Action Plan directive in the Executive Order include:
- Audit the 2013 Climate Action Plan actions and publish a progress report in Q3 2025.
- Add new actions into the Climate Action Plan to increase climate resilience and adaptation, support building a green economy, and secure protections for public health.
- Conduct inclusive engagement with most impacted communities, develop an advisory panel, and collaborate with Tribal governments, private sector, and others.
- Deliver a new Climate Action Plan by Q3 in 2026.
- Evaluate and recommend revenue-generating policies, investment strategies, and projects by Q4 2026 to support CAP implementation.
- Develop new framework to enhance how we monitor, evaluate, and report on the actions.
In December, Seattle released the 2022 GHG inventory, finding that while emissions have declined 12% from the 2008 baseline, the City needs to move faster to meet its carbon neutral by 2050 goals. Transportation is the largest source of climate emissions in Seattle, responsible for nearly 60% of all emissions.
“Seattle takes bold, effective climate actions backed up by data. The numbers show that we must reduce climate pollution faster than ever, especially in the transportation sector — the number one source of emissions in Seattle,” Deputy Mayor Jessyn Farrell said. “While the CAP will support long-term planning for a more resilient future, we must also secure near-term reductions through high impact strategic opportunities to make eco-friendly transportation options more accessible and connect underserved communities.”
Key high impact near-and medium-term transportation actions in the Executive Order include:
- Implement strategies to encourage 80% of attendees arrive to the FIFA World Cup using public transportation, shared mobility, walking, biking, or other methods not including using personal vehicles.
- Continue to develop three Low-pollution Neighborhoods (LPN) by 2028 and develop an LPN implementation and funding plan to inform the investment of $8M in Transportation Levy Funding by Q1 2026.
- Accelerate Transportation Electrification (TE) efforts and explore opportunities to install public charging at municipal sites, launch e-cargo bike program, electrify the city fleet, and more.
- Implement Transportation Demand Management Strategies in conjunction with Revive I-5, a multi-year effort to rehabilitate Interstate 5 in Seattle.
- Pursue renewal of the Seattle Transit Measure to ensure sustainable transportation options for Seattle residents and visitors beyond 2027.
Mayor Harrell continued, “Despite the Trump Administration’s disinvestments in and opposition to climate action, Seattle will not back away from the work that needs to be done to protect our environment and adapt our city to the changing climate. We will continue to enact bold policies and programs that advance environmental justice, build community resilience, and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions for a healthier future for our city.”
Seattle has recently implemented and expanded several significant policies and programs to reduce emissions from buildings; electrify vehicles for moving people, goods, and services; and expand food waste prevention to increase participation in composting, deconstruction, and reuse programs.
Stay up to date as the CAP is updated by following the Office of Sustainability and Environment (OSE) on social media! Receive monthly updates on CAP development by subscribing to OSE’s newsletter and visiting our new CAP webpage.