In the first of its three-year plan, City staff successfully completed two of the 47 actions and 92% remain on track. City bureaus notably advanced the priorities of the CEW in the following areas:
- Transportation: Advancements in decarbonizing the transportation sector
- Resilience: Made Portland more resilient to extreme flooding and heat events
- Equity: Strategic investments in East Portland
City staff have made significant progress during the first year of this three-year work plan. However, with less than seven years until the first major climate milestone in 2030, there is still substantive work that must be done together. Over the next two years, BPS and other City bureaus will continue work on these actions and develop strategies to help reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The need to address the climate crisis is clear. Portlanders experienced record-shattering heat, choking smoke from increasing wildfires, more frequent floods, and other extreme climate events over the past several years. Scientists also recently published a warning that the next five summers will be the hottest on record. In fact, Earth is likely to pass 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming over pre-industrial levels, a key climate threshold, by 2027.
There is still time to avert the worst impacts of climate change if we take the actions outlined in the CEW, but the window grows ever smaller. We have a plan, the necessary technologies, and the time to change the course of events for the Portlanders today and for the future. We simply must keep doing more.
View the report and learn more about the City’s progress in the Climate Emergency Workplan 2023 Progress Report on our website.