Oregon has fallen further behind in its effort to reach the greenhouse-gas emissions target it was supposed to achieve by 2020 and needs to be much more aggressive in slashing pollution.
Those are the key findings of two new reports released by the Oregon Global Warming Commission last week. The 11-member commission was established by the Oregon Legislature in 2007 to identify emissions-reduction strategies and policies.
In 2021, the latest year for which data is available, the state missed its 2020 emissions-reduction target by 19%, according to the commission’s 2023 biennial report. That’s even worse than in 2020, when it missed the target by 13%.
The report says that after an initial dip during the Covid-19 shutdown, emissions from the transportation, residential and commercial sectors – the largest greenhouse-gas emitters in the state – quickly rebounded as the economy reopened. The lack of progress was partly caused by the difficulties inherent in bringing about a large-scale economic shift, said commission chair Catherine Macdonald.
“It was challenging to get this kind of change in how our economy works,” said Macdonald, who is also the North America natural climate solutions director at The Nature Conservancy.
Over the past two years, legislators and the governor approved historic climate rules that will move the state in the right direction – though Oregon won’t meet its 2020 goal this year or next, Macdonald said, because it will take time for the new programs and regulations to have their full effect.
Those rules include broad emission-reduction mandates, a clean-electricity plan and requirements for more electric cars and trucks on the roads, among others.
While the state might meet its existing 45% emissions-reduction goal by 2035 – assuming existing programs and regulations are implemented and work as planned – that goal is now outdated, according to the Climate Action Roadmap to 2030 also released by the commission. The roadmap recommends the reduction target originally set for 2035 now should be achieved by 2030 instead.
“We proposed to up the goals because of all the impacts that we’re seeing in Oregon and around the world from climate change,” said Macdonald. “We all need to work harder, faster, to try and address this climate crisis.”
Oregon’s industry is unlikely to support the adoption of such new goals. Already, trade groups representing fossil fuel, farming, logging, manufacturing and other businesses have sued the state over one of its signature emission-reduction programs.
Oregon Business & Industry, the state’s largest business group and one of the parties named in the lawsuit, declined to comment on the accelerated emissions-reduction deadlines proposed by the commission.
INSUFFICIENT TARGETS
The Oregon Legislature established emission-reduction goals in 2007, mandating the state reduce emissions to 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 75 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. In 2020, former Gov. Kate Brown slightly increased those targets by requiring a 45 percent reduction by 2035 and an 80 percent reduction by 2050. Brown made the changes through an executive order after Republican legislators repeatedly walked out to block climate legislation.
To fulfill those targets, over the past two years Oregon adopted several aggressive climate policies. They include the Climate Protection Program, which mandates cuts in emissions of natural gas, transportation fuels and industrial pollution, and House Bill 2021, which sets a timeline for the state’s two major electric companies to become 100% emissions-free by 2040.
But the best available science, which claims the world must limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, suggests those targets are not strong enough. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the world must achieve net-zero emissions – or carbon neutrality – by 2050, meaning a balance between the amount of greenhouse gas that’s produced and the amount that’s removed from the atmosphere. The IPCC’s latest 2023 synthesis report says the current scale of action is insufficient and that preventing catastrophic warming requires deep emissions cuts across all sectors.
The Biden administration last year set a goal of halving emissions by 2030 and released a plan earlier this year to achieve zero emissions in the transportation sector, a major step toward the U.S. becoming carbon neutral by 2050. Several other states also have more ambitious emissions-reduction targets, including California’s net-zero target by 2045 and Washington state’s net-zero goal by 2050.
In Oregon, along with recommending the state achieve 45% emissions reduction by 2030 instead of by 2035, the commission says a 70% reduction is needed by 2040 and a 95% reduction by 2050.
The commission also recommends the state set a 2050 net-zero target and invest in carbon sequestration to reach that goal.
Meredith Connolly, the director of Climate Solutions, a Northwest-based nonprofit focused on clean energy, praised the accelerated timeline.
“Our climate goals are severely outdated, they don’t align with best available science or with what our neighbor states are doing for the climate,” Connolly said. “Setting stronger interim targets for where we’re heading in the next seven years is one of the most important pieces of this work.”
NEW CLIMATE ACTIONS
To hit the accelerated targets, the commission’s roadmap report says the state needs to implement a set of additional aggressive actions that go beyond existing programs and policies.
More than a third of those actions focus on energy-efficient buildings. They include, among others, weatherizing a whopping 95% of existing residential homes and commercial buildings by 2040, converting 100% of space and water heating in new residential homes to heat pumps and heat-pump water heaters by 2025, and retrofitting 100% of existing homes and commercial buildings with heat pumps and heat pump water heaters by 2043.
Other recommended actions focus on cleaner transportation, including increasing use of Amtrak, car sharing and e-bikes, and increasing use of renewable natural gas (RNG).
The roadmap asserts that these actions would create tens of thousands of new jobs. And while they would require more than $80 billion in capital investments, the commission estimates the benefits would far outweigh those costs, resulting in over $120 billion in cumulative net economic and health benefits in the state.
All of this is “ambitious, but achievable,” said Oregon Environmental Council’s climate program director Nora Apter, who was also a member of the commission. Unprecedented federal incentives – up-front rebates and tax credits – in the 2022 federal Inflation Reduction Act will make it possible for all Oregonians to afford heat pumps, weatherization and electric vehicles, Apter said.
“The Inflation Reduction Act has completely changed the game on climate,” she said. “We’re about to see a complete revolution of our economy.”
Ultimately, whether Oregon reaches its climate goals depends on how well the state executes its programs and policies, Apter said.
“Even though we’re on track, those emission reductions are not guaranteed,” Apter said. “We need to prioritize strong implementation of the policies we have in place.”
– Gosia Wozniacka; gwozniacka@oregonian.com; @gosiawozniacka
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