King County Executive Shannon Braddock and City of Seattle Deputy Mayor Jessyn Farrell on Bloomberg Green’s Main Stage. Photo by Bloomberg Live. The Pacific Northwest has been buzzing with climate activity all month long! Our office and City of Seattle Deputy Mayor Jessyn Farrell attended events to boost regional collaboration, get community insights to inform Climate Action Planning, and share updates with industry leaders.
All these climate actions are informing the City’s work to develop a new Climate Action Plan that lays out long-term actions to build climate resilience, create good-paying green jobs, and cultivate healthy communities. Coming up this fall will be a progress report auditing the 2013 CAP to inform the full update in 2026. Stay tuned for more on our website.
Bloomberg Green returned to Seattle for a second year!
Seattle Deputy Mayor Jessyn Farrell returned to Bloomberg Green’s stage, this time joined by King County Executive Shannon Braddock. The pair discussed how Seattle and King County are working together to combat urban climate impacts like extreme heat and rising sea levels amid federal inaction.
“We’re really well positioned to decarbonize [reduce climate pollution], and, at the same time, make cities even better places to live,” Deputy Mayor Farrell said.
Pacific Northwest Climate Week highlighted our region’s climate leadership
PNW Climate Week – actually, many weeks! – featured community events across more than 10 cities to showcase our region’s national climate leadership. The City of Seattle had a big presence at Climate Week events discussing the CAP, transportation, building the climate workforce, and more!
Deputy Mayor Farrell spoke to hundreds of attendees about sustaining critical climate work at the local level amid federal inaction. She was joined by Marissa Aho, King County’s Climate Director, and Kate Brouns, Climate and Energy Policy Advisor to the Washington Governor, and other local leaders to chat “Washington’s Next Steps.”
Climate Workforce Development Advisor, Gus Williams, discussed how the City of Seattle is creating good-paying jobs for all skill levels while taking bold climate actions.
Gus spoke to organizations, labor groups, local businesses, and jobseekers at the Coalition for Climate Careers (C3) reception to share Seattle’s approach to building equitable career paths into green jobs for women, Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), and other marginalized groups.
One example of this is the City’s Building Emissions Performance Standard law, under which most large buildings in Seattle will need to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Policies like this create local jobs in electrification, construction, engineering, and more while combatting climate change. Gus also represented OSE at Climate Week’s Green Jobs & Activation Fair hosted by 9Zero, attended by more than 300 people.
Our colleagues at the Seattle Department of Transportation led a meet up with other PNW transit agencies, groups, and leaders to collaborate on ways to reduce climate pollution in the transportation sector, a primary focus of the modernized CAP. Transportation is the largest source of climate emissions in Seattle, responsible for nearly 60% of all emissions.
The meet up took place at Mini Mart City Park, an old gas station converted into a sustainable and climate resilient community space located in Georgetown. Earlier this year, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell signed an executive order on Earth Day at Mini Mart City Park, which laid the foundation for modernizing the CAP!
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