WA’s latest emissions report shows small decline

Published 5:12 am Thursday, April 30, 2026

State officials and environmentalists point to a new report on Washington’s greenhouse gas emissions as an indicator that the state’s climate policies are working.

Others look at the same data and say it raises doubts about whether those policies significantly reduce carbon emissions at all.

The Department of Ecology report shows emissions in the state shrank by half a percentage point from 2021 to 2022.

Washington’s carbon footprint decreased by half a million metric tons between those two years.

The figures are from the most recent greenhouse gas emissions inventory report, which the department released on Friday.

“Washington is a leader in fighting climate change,” said Casey Sixkiller, Ecology’s director. “That said, we must remain laser-focused to make even more progress in combatting this threat.”

Todd Myers, vice president for research at the Washington Policy Center, and a frequent critic of the state’s climate policies, said the state is nowhere near on track to meet its 2030 emissions reduction targets.

To do so, he said, would require lowering emissions by 5-7% year after year — on par with the drop seen during the COVID pandemic, when economic activity and travel slowed drastically.

“Every year, we either see emissions go up or tiny reductions like this, and yet every year, the comments from the Department of Ecology leadership is, ‘our policies are working.’”

“Clearly they are not working, and unless they are honest, we’re going to keep failing,” said Myers.

‘Significant steps’

Greenhouse gas emissions in Washington reached their highest levels in 2000. Between then and 2022, emissions dropped by over 13% despite the state’s population growing by a third and gross domestic product doubling, according to Ecology.

In 2022, Washington state emitted 96.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, roughly half a percentage point less than 2021 emissions. The difference is the equivalent of a year’s worth of emissions from 109,000 cars, according to the agency.

Transportation and building emissions both rose by half a million metric tons in 2022, but all other sectors — including electricity, agriculture and industrial processes — fell, researchers found.

The decline is largely due to more reliance on renewable energy, namely hydropower.

When there is less snowpack, and therefore less hydropower production, Washington relies more on fossil fuels, the report notes. While 2022 was a good snowpack year, every year since some or all of the state has experienced a drought.

With recent developments in climate policy, emissions are expected to continue decreasing.

In 2023, the Climate Commitment Act took effect, pushing the state’s largest polluters toward a carbon neutral path.

Also, that year, the Clean Fuel Standard launched, which aims to curb transportation pollution, the largest emissions sector. The law requires fuel companies to gradually switch to cleaner alternatives like biofuels, to buy credits against low-carbon fuel options, including electric vehicle chargers, or to improve fuel production efficiency.

At the end of 2025, the state’s no coal policy, a part of the Clean Energy Transformation Act, kicked in, though there has been pressure from the federal government to keep Washington’s last remaining coal plant open. Coal pollutes more than any other major fossil fuel.

“We have made really significant steps,” said Leah Missik, Washington legislative director for Climate Solutions. “But to meet our targets, we really need to do more.”

State law requires emissions to be at roughly 51 million metric tons by 2030, the equivalent of 45% below 1990 levels.

The state needs to make smart investments that reduce emissions and boost affordability, Missik said, pointing to dollars raised from the Climate Commitment Act.

In the two years since the Climate Commitment Act took effect, Washington generated over $4 billion from the state’s biggest polluters paying for their own carbon emissions.

More than $1.5 billion of the revenue has been invested in over 3,600 projects across 37 state agencies, according to Ecology.

Myers argues that the state isn’t prioritizing investments in projects that actually reduce carbon emissions.

“A lot went to expanding government, not actually delivering reductions,” he said.

Lag with reporting

The 2022 data release in 2026 is due to a lag in federal data, according to the Department of Ecology. The agency is developing in-state sources to supplement that data in an effort to produce more timely reports.

An early forecast shows that emissions likely declined in 2023 and 2024 because of continued growth in renewable energy.

Instead of publishing statewide emissions reports every two years, the agency will now release them annually. The next report is expected in December.

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