Drafter
Clerk 02/28/2019
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A MOTION adopting the Implementation Plan for a Carbon Neutral King County Government.
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WHEREAS, King County is already experiencing the impacts of a changing climate: warming temperatures; acidifying marine waters; rising sea levels; increasing flooding risk; more-frequent heat events that impact health; decreasing mountain snowpack; and less water in the summer, and
WHEREAS, impacts of a changing climate will not affect all King County residents in the same way. Experiences will vary based on income, health, age and place of residence. Climate change impacts can magnify existing health issues and limited access to resources that are already experienced disproportionally by communities of color, and
WHEREAS, in 2015, the King County executive recommended and the council unanimously adopted a Strategic Climate Action Plan that establishes pathways, priority actions and commitments that the county will carry out in its operations and at the community scale to achieve ambitious emission reduction goals, and
WHEREAS, the 2015 King County Strategic Climate Action Plan presents a bold course of action that will make progress toward achieving the countywide goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by eighty percent by 2050, and
WHEREAS, the 2015 Strategic Climate Action Plan directs the county to reduce operational greenhouse gas emissions by fifty percent by 2030, and also directs the solid waste and wastewater treatment divisions of the department of natural resources and parks, to each achieve net carbon neutrality, and
WHEREAS, the 2015 King County Strategic Climate Action Plan also strengthens the county's strategy to prepare for the impacts of a changing climate on local communities, infrastructure, economy, public health and safety and the natural environment, and
WHEREAS, the 2015 Strategic Climate Action Plan advances King County's guiding principle of promoting fairness and opportunity and eliminating inequities ...

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