March is here, and King County is springing into the next season with encouraging milestones and renewed momentum as we hold fast to our True North and climate action goals. 

Our team members are hard at work finishing the next Strategic Climate Action Plan (SCAP), which will guide work to reduce emissions, promote preparedness, and support sustainable and resilient frontline communities through 2030. Stay tuned to see how input from hundreds of people shapes our next roadmap! 

Busy as we are with the SCAP, it’s just one piece of the county’s current work on climate. Read on for... 

• Ways to get involved in King County's climate equity work 

• An affordable option when making multiple trips on transit 

• Cutting-edge EV tech for King County first responders 

Please forward this newsletter to other folks who may want to subscribe. And don’t forget, you can follow countywide climate action & news from the Executive Climate Office (ECO) on social media: 

The King County International Airport-Boeing Field is one of the first in the nation to receive a hybrid electric fire truck! It will be used to respond to emergencies like aircraft crashes or hangar fires. The Oshkosh Striker Volterra will dramatically cut greenhouse gas and particulate emissions when compared to a diesel-only fire truck. 

"We're on a journey to become a world-class airport by 2030," said airport director John Parrott. "We're leading the way by embracing cleaner technology like the Striker Volterra and other electric vehicles to help reduce our carbon footprint." 

The purchase will replace a 30-year-old truck that is ready to be retired, and will reduce firefighters’ exposure to diesel exhaust.  

To learn more, click here.  

King County is also working to increase access to affordable energy and protect public health as residents face extreme weather conditions. A new survey offers insight on how energy costs impact renters, and spotlights several factors to consider when implementing clean energy programs. 

King County ECO partnered with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) to conduct the study, which was designed to better understand utility affordability and housing challenges local renters face. According to the findings, about half of King County renters say they struggled to keep up with utility bills over the past year, and they don’t learn about available utility assistance or payment programs as frequently as homeowners do.  

The findings will help inform ECO’s efforts to ensure all community members have access to energy and utility justice programming. 

You can read more findings and find a link to the full study here. 

King County ECO’s Energize program installs heat pumps and offers other energy-efficient upgrades in eligible houses, family home child cares, and adult family homes. A contractor completed the first adult family home install at a home in Shoreline over the past month, replacing a broken heating system with one that will provide both heating in the winter and cooling during heat waves and increasingly hot summers. 

Adult family homes are buildings such as assisted living facilities that may use a lot of energy because multiple people live there. Energize for Adult Family Homes is funded by the Home Electrification and Appliance Rebates (HEAR) program, which is supported by the state’s Climate Commitment Act. The CCA supports Washington’s climate action efforts by putting cap-and-invest dollars to work reducing climate pollution, creating jobs, and improving public health. Information about the CCA is available at www.climate.wa.gov.  

View a clip from our KOMO feature here and the KING 5 story here. 

ORCA is making the Regional Day Pass fare permanent, creating more affordable and accessible transit for riders across the region. The pass costs just $6 for adult riders and $2 for ORCA LIFT and RRFP senior and disabled cardholders, and offers unlimited rides on participating transit services for one day for the cost of just two trips. It comes as ORCA recently announced ridership jumped 12% in 2024.

This price change, approved by the ORCA Joint Board, saves money and enhances convenience for customers who use multiple transit services in a single day. The cost reduction also aligns with the reduction in fares for Sound Transit Express Bus service, now $3 per trip, and Community Transit’s reduced fare, now $1.  

Taking transit instead of driving solo can help reduce your carbon footprint, and options like this make that choice simpler. Not ready to take transit every day? Try one trip a week, and see how you feel not having to sit behind the wheel in traffic! 

Click here to learn more.

In other transit news, Metro has completed its new Eastlake Layover Facility. It’s a space for operators to take breaks between trips. In the past, buses between trips would park under the Washington State Convention Center, creating more congestion for other vehicles. This reduces traffic and increases comfort and safety for operators as Metro continues its expansion of service. 

Did you catch the Executive’s February announcement about the 2026-2031 King County Parks Levy? It included several specific investments toward climate action, including being the first Parks Levy to establish a climate response fund that would help communities adapt to emerging climate risks. The Levy would also pay for more urban forest parks and enhance forest restoration and protection.  

That’s in addition to the climate benefits that come with maintaining, enhancing and expanding King County’s current footprint of parks! 

You can learn more about the Levy here.

Are you familiar with the King County Executive Climate Office (ECO)? Here’s a little more about who we are, and what we do: 

Departments across King County implement climate action within their work. King County ECO elevates, coordinates and accelerates those efforts and manages several in-house programs. That includes work on building decarbonization, climate preparedness, climate justice and building a clean energy workforce. Our agenda is set based on the approaches laid out in the 2020 Strategic Climate Action Plan. 

ECO works with the broader King County Climate Team, which includes climate leads from different departments.

You can learn more about us at our website here.