Tracking Seattle's Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Overview

Seattle releases an analysis of our climate pollution, called a greenhouse gas inventory, every two years. The Seattle GHG inventory tracks emissions over three key sectors: transportation, buildings, and waste for a total of over 3 million metric tons of climate pollution emitted.

A downloadable version of our most recent report is here. 

For full-screen data visualizations, click here.

2022 Update

The 2022 findings show core City emissions increased approximately 4% since the 2020 inventory, which saw a large pandemic-induced drop in emissions. Overall, emissions have declined 12% from the 2008 baseline, with population increasing 26% during the same period.

• Transportation (58% of core emissions):
  • 4% increase in GHG emissions. While vehicle efficiency improved, the primary driver for the emissions, vehicle miles traveled, increased nearly 9%. Likely contributors include increased business activity, travel, tourism, and return to office directives. Transit ridership has also been gradually increasing since the low-point of the pandemic
    
    
• Buildings (40% of core emissions):
  • 6% increase in GHG emissions. Emissions from residential and commercial gas and electricity both rose by a few percentage points, with nearly all emissions in buildings coming from burning fossil gas. Extreme weather and pandemic-induced consumption changes likely had an important role. There were 15% more cooling degree days and 13% more heating degree days in 2022 versus 2020.
    
    
• Waste (2% of core emissions):
  • 7% increase in GHG emissions. 2022 saw significant emissions increase in the self-haul sector (approximately 40%), caused by heightened rates of garbage contaminated with organic and recyclable materials that should have been diverted and waste from neighboring cities using Seattle transfer stations.