King County Community Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Inventory and Wedge Analysis

To support the approach, ICLEI developed a community-scale geographic-based GHG for calendar year 2018 in a way that ensured consistency and comparability with previous inventories. The County’s 2018 GHG inventory was used to quantify progress toward meeting its existing “absolute” target, plus a per-capita target, based on a 2007 baseline. The analysis looked at recent trends and projected future changes based on: population growth; impacts of regulatory standards and codes, cleaner fuels, fewer vehicle miles, improved building energy efficiency, and increased renewable energy use. The results were used to project potential impact of 2019 Washington State policies on clean electricity, vehicle fuels, and related GHG reduction strategies; and to identify how sector targets may need to be updated to achieve the 50% reduction in GHG by 2030.

Adding an additional layer of investigation, ICLEI’s Contribution Analysis quantified causes of changes in emissions between 2008 and 2018. Finally, using the emissions inventory ICLEI then updated the 2015 Strategic Climate Action Plan (SCAP) wedge analysis (see graphic). Taken together, these analyses inform pathways for the County to achieve its 2030 community-scale GHG reduction target using updated assumptions about government policies and sector-specific targets.