Weekend Reads | Seattle’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions | South Seattle Emerald

by Kevin Schofield

This weekend’s learn is a brand new report from the Metropolis of Seattle’s Workplace of Sustainability and Setting, which gives a listing of town’s greenhouse gasoline (GHG) emissions in 2020. It appears at each the magnitude of GHG emissions in addition to the sources, and it offers us an attention-grabbing and insightful take a look at what it can take to make significant discount within the metropolis’s contribution to world warming.

The report breaks out individually town’s “core” emissions — people who Metropolis insurance policies can most immediately affect — from the whole “expanded” emissions that embody all sectors and classes. As you may think about, compiling all of this data is troublesome. In some locations, there may be sufficient data to supply exact and extremely correct figures; for instance, Seattle Metropolis Gentle and Puget Sound Power have detailed knowledge on electrical energy and pure gasoline consumption, damaged out by residential, industrial, and industrial makes use of. Nevertheless, different classes are tough estimates: Air transportation knowledge (i.e., consumption of jet gas) is low-certainty, and projections on highway and rail transportation emissions are primarily based on fashions — together with estimates of what number of of every sort of auto are in use on Seattle’s roads and the everyday emissions of these automobiles.

The Metropolis’s report compares emissions from 2008 to 2018, after which 2020. That is vital context, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic modified all the pieces: Companies shut their workplaces and factories down, transportation got here to a halt whereas we have been in lockdown, and many individuals began working from dwelling. On the identical time, town’s inhabitants grew from 594,000 in 2008 to round 745,000 in 2018 (after which, in accordance with the Census Bureau, shrank by about 10,000 folks by 2020). 

Town’s total greenhouse gasoline emissions — measured in “CO2 equal” to account for the differing warming impacts of varied greenhouse gases — remained flat between 2008 and 2018 at about 6.3 million metric tons, although that represents a 21% drop in per-capita emissions given the inhabitants improve over that point. Then, in 2020, whole emissions dropped by round 20% to five.1 million metric tons, once more largely because of the affect of the COVID-19 pandemic: Practically all of the reductions have been in air and highway transportation sectors.

So the place do our metropolis’s greenhouse gasoline emissions come from? Of the roughly 5 million metric tons of C02-equivalent (CO2e) emitted in 2020, over half got here from transportation, with passenger vehicles and air transportation making up the majority; 58% of the emissions have been associated to gasoline, 29% was jet gas, and 13% was diesel gas.

One other quarter of town’s emissions is attributed to buildings: 15% industrial, and 10% residential. The most important constructing contributor by far is burning pure gasoline, largely for warmth.

Native business contributes 18% of town’ emissions, cut up between vitality use (constructing warmth and working tools) and “course of” — i.e., chemical and combustion processes that emit greenhouse gases as a part of the business’s manufacturing course of. Cement processes create over a 3rd of business greenhouse gasoline emissions.

Maybe surprisingly, waste assortment and processing signify lower than 2% of Seattle’s greenhouse gasoline emissions.

It’s attention-grabbing to see how a lot of a distinction the pandemic made in 2020. In contrast with 2018, transportation-related emissions dropped by 28%, primarily attributable to air, highway, and rail reductions. Industrial buildings decreased emissions by 4.9% — and perhaps we needs to be stunned that it wasn’t extra, given what number of vacant buildings there have been (and nonetheless are). Residential emissions dropped by 1.2%; and on condition that all of us stayed dwelling and saved the lights and warmth on all day, maybe we might have anticipated that to have even elevated (in actual fact, residential pure gasoline emissions did go up barely).

We don’t but know what has occurred to greenhouse emissions post-2020. We might have a vigorous argument about whether or not we’re “post-pandemic” but, particularly because it pertains to workers returning to the workplace as a substitute of working from dwelling. That may have an effect on highway and rail transportation, in addition to emissions from each industrial and residential buildings. We do know that air transportation has rebounded considerably this yr, and we are able to anticipate that to be mirrored within the post-2020 numbers.

The Metropolis’s report additionally makes clear the place essentially the most impactful alternatives are for additional greenhouse gasoline emissions reductions, the significance of which could be very actual given each the widespread droughts within the western United States and likewise the impacts to Seattle’s air high quality from wildfire smoke. The three huge areas are highway transportation, air transportation, and changing each industrial and residential buildings from gasoline to electrical warmth. Right here in Seattle, we’re lucky that 90% of our native electrical energy comes from “clear” sources: primarily hydroelectric, but additionally wind and photo voltaic. That magnifies the affect that changing constructing warmth from pure gasoline to electrical and switching from gasoline-powered to electrical vehicles can have. Over one-fifth of Seattle’s greenhouse gasoline emissions come from burning pure gasoline, and one-third is from passenger cars. Each are ripe for switching to wash electrical energy.

2020 Neighborhood Greenhouse Gasoline Emissions Stock

Kevin Schofield is a contract author and publishes Seattle Paper Path. Beforehand he labored for Microsoft, revealed Seattle Metropolis Council Perception, co-hosted the “Seattle Information, Views and Brews” podcast, and raised two daughters as a single dad. He serves on the Board of Administrators of Woodland Park Zoo, the place he additionally volunteers.

📸 Featured picture by Niccolo Bertoldi/Shutterstock.com.

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