Washington greenhouse gas emissions and the path to the 2030 limit
Washington's official greenhouse gas totals for 1990-2022, its statutory limits, a straight-line path to the 2030 limit with alternatives, the yearly cut still needed, and the electricity data behind the small 2022 drop.
Coverage: 1990-2022 for inventory totals; 2018-2022 utility fuel mix; 2019-2024 in-state generation; 2012-2024 large-emitter reports; limits for 2020-2050.
Built to check Washington Policy Center and Department of Ecology claims, made in April 2026, about whether the state is on track for its 2030 limit and what drove the 2022 decline. Uses the official inventory, the statute, the utility fuel mix the inventory relies on, federal generation data, and Ecology's large-emitter reports.
Geography
Washington, United States
Unit of observation
State-year (and sector-year or fuel-year)
Update cadence
Updated when Ecology publishes a new inventory (next one due by December 31, 2026).
Curator
FactHub Research Team
Curated data tables
These related tables form this versioned dataset release. Each
table has its own downloadable file and field definitions.
Gross emissions by sector, 1990-2022
Washington gross greenhouse gas emissions, total and seven sectors, unrounded.
Sector emissions: transportation (buildings = residential, commercial and industrial on-site fuel; fugitive_fossil = natural gas and oil system leaks)
million metric tons CO2e
observed
buildings_mmt_co2e
number
Sector emissions: buildings (buildings = residential, commercial and industrial on-site fuel; fugitive_fossil = natural gas and oil system leaks)
million metric tons CO2e
observed
electricity_mmt_co2e
number
Sector emissions: electricity (buildings = residential, commercial and industrial on-site fuel; fugitive_fossil = natural gas and oil system leaks)
million metric tons CO2e
observed
agriculture_mmt_co2e
number
Sector emissions: agriculture (buildings = residential, commercial and industrial on-site fuel; fugitive_fossil = natural gas and oil system leaks)
million metric tons CO2e
observed
industrial_processes_mmt_co2e
number
Sector emissions: industrial processes (buildings = residential, commercial and industrial on-site fuel; fugitive_fossil = natural gas and oil system leaks)
million metric tons CO2e
observed
waste_mmt_co2e
number
Sector emissions: waste (buildings = residential, commercial and industrial on-site fuel; fugitive_fossil = natural gas and oil system leaks)
million metric tons CO2e
observed
fugitive_fossil_mmt_co2e
number
Sector emissions: fugitive fossil (buildings = residential, commercial and industrial on-site fuel; fugitive_fossil = natural gas and oil system leaks)
million metric tons CO2e
observed
Statutory emission limits
Limits under RCW 70A.45.020(1)(a) in both forms the statute gives.
Sources, table definitions, replications and limitations for this release, as stored in the dataset content.
Saved analyses
Actual emissions and the straight-line path to the 2030 limit
Question: How do Washington's yearly greenhouse gas emissions compare with a straight-line path from the 2020 limit to the 2030 limit?
Result: Actual 2022: 96.1 MMT CO2e; path value for 2022: 84.7 MMT.
Operation: Actual totals from the annual-emissions table; path = linear interpolation between the 2020 limit (Ecology's 1990 value, 93.09 MMT) and the 2030 limit (45% below, 51.20 MMT).
Scope: Washington statewide gross emissions, 1990-2022 actual; path 2020-2030.
The size of the gap depends on the path chosen; see the robustness checks.
Robustness checks
Sensitivity analysis:Gap in 2022 under different paths to the 2030 limit.
Every reasonable path puts 2022 above it: the gap ranges from 5% (straight line from actual 2021) to 16.6% (statute tonnages), and is 61.3% on a line from 1990 that ignores the 2020 limit.
Alternative comparison:Yearly cut needed to reach the 2030 limit.
Measured as the pace still needed instead of a gap, emissions must fall 7.57% a year compounded (5.84% of the 2022 level per year as equal steps) from 2023 through 2030.
Gap in 2022 under different paths to the 2030 limit
Question: Does the finding that 2022 emissions were above the path depend on which path is used?
Result: Gap ranges from 5% to 16.6% across paths that start in 2019-2021 or at the 2020 limit.
Operation: Repeat gap-2022 for six path definitions.
Our yearly sums of data.wa.gov idhm-59de reproduce Ecology's figure (90.79 to 90.38 MMT).
Statements on record
Exact quotes, unaltered, with what surrounded them, the primary
source, and an archived copy of it.
“Washington’s emissions are 13.4 percent higher than they should have been to meet the 2030 target.”
Todd Myers, Vice President for Research, Washington Policy Center
Washington Policy Center blog post ·
·
Assertion
Context: Myers said that by 2022 emissions should have been about 85 MMT CO2e instead of the 96.1 MMT Ecology reported. The next sentence says Ecology staff are trying to whitewash that the state is badly off track.
“If those data hold, Washington state’s emissions would have to fall by 7.4 percent per year from 2025 to 2030, or more than one COVID-scale reduction every two years.”
Todd Myers, Vice President for Research, Washington Policy Center
Washington Policy Center blog post ·
·
Assertion
Context: The preceding sentence says Ecology's partial data for 2023 and 2024 indicate emissions fell less than three percent between 2022 and 2024. Earlier, Myers said that from 2022 numbers emissions would have to fall nearly 6 percent per year from 2023 to 2030.
“This reduction if about one-half of a percent is due entirely to a reduction from electricity-related emissions.”
Todd Myers, Vice President for Research, Washington Policy Center
Washington Policy Center blog post ·
·
Assertion
Context: The sentence follows Myers's statement that total emissions fell from 96.6 to 96.1 MMT CO2e between 2021 and 2022. The word "if" appears in the original, apparently for "of".
“Every sector saw GHGs increase except electricity and that was thanks primarily to an increase in hydropower due to high snowpack.”
Todd Myers, Vice President for Research, Washington Policy Center
Washington Policy Center blog post ·
·
Assertion
Context: This is one of the summary points at the top of the post. Later the post says hydro output rose 2.1 million MWh and wind just over 2 million MWh, and that without the hydro increase statewide emissions would likely have risen.
“We believe that is false (the actual due date was the end of 2024)”
Todd Myers, Vice President for Research, Washington Policy Center
Washington Policy Center blog post ·
·
Assertion
Context: Myers was responding to the report's statement that it was released "ahead of schedule," well ahead of the December 2026 due date of the next biennial report. He added that Ecology took three and a half years from the end of 2022 to release the data.
“we are releasing this update, based on the most recent available data, well ahead of the due date of the next biennial report in December 2026.”
Washington Department of Ecology, State agency that prepares the greenhouse gas inventory
Washington Greenhouse Gas Inventory: 1990-2022, publication 26-14-030, Executive Summary ·
·
Assertion
Context: The preceding sentence says Ecology developed the capacity to produce this interim report ahead of schedule. The report's overview adds that the report is not required by statute and that a 2025 revision changed the reporting language to reflect data availability.
“The 2021-2022 decline is largely attributable to increases in wind and solar power, combined with a strong year for hydropower, and a drop in highly polluting coal power.”
Washington Department of Ecology, State agency that prepares the greenhouse gas inventory
Ecology news release, "New report: Clean energy is powering reductions in Washington's carbon emissions" ·
·
Assertion
Context: The release headline says clean energy is powering reductions in Washington's carbon emissions. The release reports that emissions fell 0.5% from 96.6 to 96.1 million metric tons.
Retrieved November 3, 2026. Washington State government publication. Public government document; linked, not rehosted.
Reliability:
Government.
Has a stake in this finding. Ecology prepares the inventory under RCW 70A.45.020 and administers the state climate policies it measures. Most sector values come from EPA's State Inventory Tool; electricity uses Commerce fuel mix data.
Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (Washington open data). Yearly sums copied into large-emitter-indicator.csv.
Reliability:
Government.
Has a stake in this finding. Entities emitting 10,000 tonnes or more report to Ecology under WAC 173-441; fuel suppliers and electric power entities were added in 2022. Dataset rows were last updated April 24, 2026.
Retrieved November 3, 2026. Washington State government publication. Values copied into utility-fuel-mix.csv.
Reliability:
Government.
Compiled by Commerce from reports by more than 60 utilities and BPA under RCW 19.29A; the inventory's electricity sector is built from it. The report header reads 2023 fuel mix disclosure report, for report year 2022.
Retrieved November 3, 2026. All rights reserved; quoted briefly for review. Linked and quoted, not rehosted.
Reliability:
Party to the dispute.
Has a stake in this finding. Washington Policy Center is a free-market think tank that has criticized the state's climate policies and sued Ecology over the inventory's timing.
Limitations and reproducibility
Fully reproducible: All inputs are public. build.js recomputes every saved analysis from the CSV tables, which were copied from the cited workbook, report table, API query and open-data query.
The inventory ends in 2022. 2023 and 2024 values here are estimates from large-emitter reports, which use different coverage and methods.
The statute sets only limits for 2020, 2030, 2040 and 2050. Any path between them is an analytical choice; several are shown.
Ecology sets the 1990 baseline at 93.1 MMT under current methods, while the statute also names fixed tonnages (90.5 MMT for 2020, 50 MMT for 2030). Both readings are shown.
The electricity sector is consumption-based (power bought by Washington utilities, including imports); all other sectors are production-based estimates, mostly downscaled from national data by EPA's State Inventory Tool.
Changes in power sources from one year to the next are descriptive; they do not split the emissions change among causes.
annual-emissions.csv
text/csv · 2.3 KB (2,330 bytes)
