Seattle’s Climate Change Response Framework

The transportation sector is a major contributor to carbon emissions causing climate change and consequently presents a historic opportunity for climate action. This is particularly true in an urban context, where land uses and public transport, walking, and cycling networks can significantly reduce car dependence. Seattle, Washington, United States, is a member of C40 Cities climate network and published a groundbreaking Climate Change Response Framework (CCRF) for transportation in 2023. The framework provides City leadership and its residents with a concrete set of strategies to reduce emissions from personal and commercial transportation, grounded in a robust technical analysis that evaluated which strategies would be most effective. Underpinning the analysis is a lens of co-benefits across safety, equity, health, and economy. By making the case on these co-benefits of climate action, city policymakers and practitioners can secure valuable political support and spend political capital on strategies and investments that will truly have an impact. How such actions are positioned in communications to the general public is critical to ensure long-term support. Seattle’s focus on climate optimism and connecting CCRF strategies to new ways of messaging will allow leadership to build the broader coalition necessary for true equitable co-creation of climate solutions. This article provides an overview of the CCRF, a deep dive on the technical emissions and co-benefits analyses that underpins it, and recommendations on how other cities can approach the climate challenge through a lens of equity, inclusivity, and positivity.