Anacortes planners preview climate element: 2022 inventory, vulnerability index and next steps

Anacortes planning staff and consultants on March 26 presented background analyses for the city's comprehensive-plan climate element, including a 2022 greenhouse gas inventory and a climate vulnerability index, and told commissioners the working draft of goals and policies will be released to the commission before the next meeting.

The presentation matters because Washington state's HB 1181 requires jurisdictions to include separate greenhouse-gas reduction and resilience subelements in their comprehensive plans; the city's analysis will inform local policies on transportation, building energy, shoreline risk and community equity. John Coleman, director of the Planning, Community and Economic Development Department, told the commission the meeting would cover "why we are required to do a climate element" and provide background that will feed the goals-and-policies stage scheduled for the commission's next meeting.

Consultants from Makers and Parametrics summarized the technical work the city has used to prepare the element. Katie Saunders of Makers explained the two required subelements and Commerce guidance the team followed, saying: "there's a new state requirement to plan for climate change as part of the comprehensive planning process." Beth Miller of Parametrics presented the greenhouse gas inventory and summarized methodology and findings. Miller reported the inventory result as "486,000 metric tons c o 2 e in 2022," and described why…