Portland crosswalk with traffic
We did it! 100% clean and fossil-free Multnomah county buildings
Multnomah County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution ensuring all new county-owned buildings—including libraries, courthouses, and community centers—are built to be fossil-free and utilize 100% clean and renewable energy.
New Energy Cities

This Climate Solutions program is no longer active.

In 2016, Climate Solutions completed the seventh and final year of our successful New Energy Cities program. Combining research on urban carbon reduction best practices and partnering with Northwest cities and counties, we helped local communities accelerate carbon emissions reduction through climate and clean energy goal-setting, clean energy transition planning, policy development, program design, and implementation.

Our New Energy Cities program continued to work with the King County-Cities Climate Collaboration (K4C), a voluntary coalition of King County and 13 cities united in their goal to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 supporting efforts to get underway with achieving its 90% renewable electricity by 2030. New Energy Cities formed a partnership with Stockholm Environment Institute to provide energy maps and carbon wedge analyses for Everett, WA (Snohomish County) and Olympia, WA (Thurston County). Our existing partnership with Tukwila, WA showed encouraging progress, with city leadership and staff eager to make deep carbon reductions in their community.

Climate Solutions is proud of New Energy Cities and its seven years of success. Although we phased out the program at the end of 2016, Climate Solutions will continue to help our city and county partners create political momentum to inform policy and drive carbon emissions reduction at the state and regional levels.

Give for a brighter future

Connect

Join our email list to learn about what we do and how to get involved. 

Upcoming Events

Turning Brown into Gold

Submitted by Sam Bliss on

While cleaning up sites such as capped landfills, abandoned mines, and former industrial properties can be pricey, converting them into renewable energy generating capacity may help make the investment pay back over time.

Read More

Doing the Math of Carbon Emissions Reduction

It is well known that cities adopted greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets consistent with the Kyoto Protocol. Lesser known is the work that cities have done in the intervening years to make the projects happen that would achieve those targets.

Read More

Cities Pioneering the Clean Energy Economy

Powering the New Energy Future from the Ground Up profiles a diverse set of 34 communities with populations under 250,000 and found that U.S. communities are pioneering a wide range of clean energy solutions in energy efficiency, renewable energy, electric vehicles, and carbon-reducing transportation strategies.

Read More

May I (Re-)introduce You to District Energy?

Submitted by Tom Osdoba on

Recently, many cities have begun taking another look at district energy to address their energy challenges. Whether they are championing strategies to secure energy supplies, insulate themselves from price instability, or reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cities are finding district energy can do all of these simultaneously.

Read More

The Carbon Price Bogeyman

Submitted by Tom Osdoba on

Why are we so afraid of carbon pricing? Whenever this topic is raised, people get tense, nervous, or outraged out of all proportion to the actual impact that putting a price on carbon would have for most of us.

Read More