Tacoma adopts Climate Action Plan to eliminate carbon emissions and save $4 billion by 2050
For Tacoma, it’s now or never.
City leaders say they can choose to continue to operate the way they always have, or they can make drastic changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and invest in a green future.
On Nov. 30, Tacoma City Council made the decision to approve a 2030 Climate Action Plan they say will keep the city on the course to achieving zero emissions by 2050.
It’s an endeavor that’s expected to cost $2.5 billion in the next 30 years, but a financial analysis conducted by the city shows the effort also would save the city more than $6.6 billion, a net savings of about $4 billion to offset climate change impacts the city would otherwise be paying to address.
The plan proposes that money should come from a variety of sources, both internally (moving around existing jobs and funding, adding fines,) and externally (such as grants, tax levies, lobbying changes to state law).
To Mayor Victoria Woodards, the plan is essential.
“Climate action brings many benefits, and the price of inaction is high both in economic and human terms,” Woodards wrote in a letter included in the plan. “Future generations will judge our actions, and we speak to them now: the challenges are clear. We must transform our systems at great pace and scale to be carbon-neutral and socially just by major climate deadlines in 2030 and 2050 – or risk catastrophe.”
The 2030 Climate Action Plan outlines 64 actions to tackle the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Tacoma, from transportation to industry to buildings.
The actions were prioritized from hundreds of actions proposed by the public, stakeholder groups and staff, alongside global climate science, according to city staff.
What’s in the plan?
Tacoma developed its first Climate Action Plan in 2008, in which the city committed to reduce its community-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent. That plan was replaced with a plan in 2016 called the Environmental Action Plan, which detailed 70 actions to implement through 2020 in the topics of ecosystems, food, buildings and energy, transportation, waste and climate resiliency.
The city made progress on all but four of the EAP actions, according to a 2020 report, resulting in increased tree canopy and community gardens, decreased energy use by 10 percent in city and Tacoma Public Utility buildings, increased solar power use by 26 percent, and reduced single-use occupancy vehicle trips by 7 percent. But they fell short in other areas by failing to meet specific air pollution levels and seeing an increase in waste.
The third Climate Action Plan comes after the climate emergency resolution declared by the City Council in December 2019. That resolution called for the city to create a pathway to reaching the city’s carbon reduction goals by 2050.
“It provides the important first step of identifying actions to help us reduce our greenhouse gas emissions with the intent of lessening the impacts of climate change. But also importantly, it provides strategies to help us adapt to the changes that we’re going to have to endure,” Jim Parvey, director of the city of Tacoma’s Office of Environmental Policy and Sustainability, said at a City Council meeting on Nov. 30.
Ten of the plan’s actions include:
Funding 10 community food-access projects like community gardens, food forests, orchards, farms, food rescue efforts or farmers markets. Estimated cost: $100,000.
Supporting community organizers with stipends, professional development or technical assistance to host 10 civic climate-action events led by Climate Ambassadors. Estimated cost: Less than $100,000.
Building a complete, citywide network of sidewalks, safe and ADA-accessible intersections, bike connections and Safe Routes to School improvements by 2050. Estimated cost: $500,000 one-time for funding plan, annual implementation approximately $60 million/year to reach 2050 goal.
Creating residential and commercial building retrofit solutions with increased access and awareness to codes, loans and incentives for energy efficient heating/cooling, seeking grant funding to pilot a retrofit program for all-electric heating and cooling in buildings, and ensuring existing repair and rehabilitation programs prioritize low carbon, healthy and efficient appliances and equipment. Estimated cost: up to $2 million.
Adopting new energy codes to make commercial buildings efficient, low carbon and healthy. Estimated cost: less than $100,000.
Improving land-use density bonuses and tax credits to require zero carbon energy and green building certification. Estimated cost: Less than $100,000.
Creating food-waste prevention by hiring a staff member to help develop diversion programs. Estimated cost: $200,000.
Hiring a green economy specialist to coordinate green economy actions and support partners and businesses. Estimated cost: $150,000.
Planting and maintaining right-of-way trees to reduce heat with 3,000 trees actively maintained by 2024. Estimated cost: $500,000.
Working with the health department to distribute 2,500 filter fans to help mitigate wildfire smoke in homes and businesses. Estimated cost: less than $100,000.
Funding the plan includes some of the following strategies:
- Moving funding and staffing from low-demand services to climate action work.
- Leverage one-time recovery funding, like American Rescue Plan funds.
- Federal, state and local grants.
- Implement an excess property tax levy or multi-year property tax levy lid lift.
Increase franchise fees for natural gas utilities using the public right-of-way.
Pursue lawsuits against polluters to offset the costs to the public from their behavior.
Require permits and increase fines for tree removal.
Implement impact fees for multimodal streets.
Improve business and occupation (B&O) tax credits to encourage green jobs.
The plan is expected to add jobs in Tacoma through design and construction of zero-carbon and resilient buildings, retrofits to existing buildings, installing active transportation infrastructure, improving industrial processes and managing diverted waste. These investments will create an average of 1,300 jobs per year, according to the plan, or approximately 40,000 jobs in Tacoma through 2050.
“The majority of jobs added are in the building sector, with significant retrofits (including heat pumps and water heating systems) targeted for all buildings,” says the report. “Investments in industrial improvements also generate a significant number of new jobs for the city, as new technologies are developed, manufactured, and/or installed.”
Community response
The Climate Action Plan was developed with a 14-month process collecting input from over 1,000 people, according to the city.
Many environmentalists have expressed their support for the plan, saying that adopting it is the least the city can do in response to climate change.
In a letter dated Oct. 21, 2021, Communities for a Healthy Bay director Melissa Malott wrote in support of the plan, with a few recommended edits to speed up and strengthen the process.
Malott referenced a recent United Nations report calling 2021 a “make-or-break year” to make “bold climate action investments to avoid irreversible, catastrophic climate change.”
“We are already experiencing excess heat events, earlier snow melts, and the impacts of wildfires. It is time to act,” Malott said.
The Citizens Climate Lobby of Tacoma, Tacoma Planning Commission, Downtown on the Go and the Sustainable Tacoma Commission wrote letters supporting the adoption of the Climate Action Plan.
Members of the Tacoma Planning Commission highlighted some challenges the city could face in reaching net carbon neutrality by 2050, including expansion of fossil fuels in industrial areas in Tacoma.
“This consideration of no further expanded emissions should be made explicit and apply to the Tideflats Subarea Plan process to align the City’s environmental initiatives,” commission members wrote in a Oct. 20 letter.
Tacoma City Council passed regulations in November to restrict the expansion of fossil-fuel infrastructure on the Tideflats, but there remains debate about whether the new land-use codes go far enough to completely halt expanded use of fossil fuels at existing facilities.
One group, the Environmental Justice Leaders Workgroup, was convened in fall 2020 with 10 people from Tacoma, Pierce County and enrolled members of the Puyallup Tribe to help develop the Climate Action Plan.
Members of the group say the public-input process felt rushed and that they were not provided enough time or meaningful guidance and participation in the CAP process.
“Unfortunately, we only had a short window of time to discuss our priorities in a meaningful way. Had we been given the resources, process clarity, and support we needed, we could have done more,” members of the group wrote in an undated letter posted on the city’s website.
Members of the industrial community in Tacoma also spoke at a public meeting on Nov. 30 in support of the Climate Action Plan.
“The Port of Tacoma intimately recognizes the existential threat that climate change poses to our community,” Matthew Mauer, local government affairs manager for the Port of Tacoma, said during the Nov. 30 meeting. “We do applaud your work on the 2030 Climate Action Plan, and we fully support its passage.”
A spokesperson for Puget Sound Energy, Kierra Phifer, spoke in support of working with the city on implementing the plan moving forward.
“Given the number of PSE’s customers potentially impacted by the actions in the city’s Climate Action Plan, we ask that the city will view PSE as a stakeholder and a partner throughout the implementation of the (plan),” Phifer said.
