OLYMPIA—The Washington State Department of Commerce on January 6 revised greenhouse gas emissions data to the Department of Ecology for projects funded by the Climate Commitment Act (CCA) during 2023-25.
The agency previously reported that eight rebate projects for 2023-25 funded by the CCA that support home electrification and appliance rebates for low-income and vulnerable communities would reduce 7.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions with an estimated total reduction of 8,635,900 metric tons CO2e from all 14 projects. The corrected data now estimates that “78,000 tons of emissions will be reduced over the lifetime of those 8 projects.”
The total number of estimated CO2 reduction has been revised to 308,000 tons across all of the 14 CCA-funded programs—a 2,704% or a 2,991% downward adjustment.
The Lynnwood Times is awaiting clarification from the Department of Commerce if the unit of measurement “ton” in Tuesday’s announcement is intended to be “metric ton.” If so, then the downward adjustment error would be 2,704%; if not, the difference would be 2,991%— 1 metric ton is equal to 1.10 tons.
The inflated error in estimated reduction of greenhouse gas reported by the Department of Commerce was “due to a data entry error.”
“We made an error in reporting data for this program. The Climate Commitment Act is a vital part of the state’s efforts to control carbon emissions, and we’re committed to ensuring that the information we share is complete and accurate,” said Jennifer Grove, assistant director of Energy for Commerce. “Corrective measures are already in place to strengthen our processes and prevent similar errors in the future.”
The greenhouse gas emissions data is part of an annual report by Ecology detailing how more than $1.5 billion in funds raised through the CCA have been appropriated by lawmakers. Since becoming aware of the error, Ecology has been conducting a full review of all the data submitted. This data encompasses more than 3,600 projects by 37 agencies. Ecology will release a corrected report when that review is complete in the coming weeks.
Moving forward, agencies will report greenhouse gas reductions through a new online tool that will reduce the potential for human error, the agency wrote in its announcement.
“Accurate data is essential to guiding our state’s work to reduce carbon pollution,” said Joel Creswell, manager of Ecology’s Climate Pollution Reduction program. “We’re updating our processes to more thoroughly check data reported by agencies so this doesn’t happen again.”
Author: Mario Lotmore
