When a Dashboard Becomes a Narrative: Why Washington’s Climate Numbers Don’t Add Up
When a Dashboard Becomes a Narrative: Why Washington’s Climate Numbers Don’t Add Up
By: Jessie Simmons
The Government Affairs Desk
Category: Climate Policy and Affordability
Why the Numbers Matter
Public climate policy depends on trust in the numbers. When a state asks households and businesses to accept higher energy costs, fuel prices, and regulatory burdens in the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the data used to justify those choices must be clear, consistent, and honest. If the math collapses, the debate stops being about priorities and becomes a question of governance.
That is the problem with Washington State’s recent Climate Commitment Act Investments report.
This is not an argument about whether climate change is real or whether emissions reductions are a legitimate public goal. It is a narrower, but more important, question: do the state’s own numbers support the claims being made on behalf of the Climate Commitment Act?
Based on the report itself and the correction that quietly followed its release, the answer is no.
What the State Claimed
The Department of Ecology initially reported that CCA-funded projects during the 2023–25 biennium would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 8.6 million metric tons of CO₂e. To help the public visualize that number, the agency described it as equivalent to taking about 40 percent of all gas and diesel vehicles in Washington off the road for an entire year.
The report also claimed these reductions were achieved at an average cost of just $40 per metric ton, a figure presented as evidence that the program delivers unusually efficient climate benefits. These two statistics became the backbone of the public narrative around the Climate Commitment Act.
Early Signs the Math Wasn’t Stable
Even before any corrections were acknowledged, the report showed clear statistical warning signs. According to the appendix, the median cost per project was around $1,700 per metric ton, while the average project cost exceeded $14,000 per metric ton. Yet the report’s headline figure was $40 per metric ton for the program as a whole.
When the median and the mean diverge that sharply, it signals that results are being driven by a small number of extreme outliers. In those circumstances, a single average is not just misleading; it is analytically fragile. Any rigorous analysis would require those outliers to be examined closely before being allowed to define the story.
That did not happen.
The Correction That Changes the Story
In an update attached to the report, Ecology later acknowledged that eight electrification projects were mistakenly credited with approximately 7.5 million metric tons of emissions reductions due to a data entry error. The corrected estimate for those same projects is about 78,000 metric tons over their lifetime.
Using only the state’s own figures, that correction reduces the total claimed emissions reductions from roughly 8.6 million metric tons to about 1.2 million. In practical terms, nearly 86 percent of the originally reported climate benefit disappears once the error is corrected.
This was not a marginal adjustment. It fundamentally altered the scale and interpretation of the program’s impact.
Why This Error Is So Significant
The magnitude of the error exposes deeper problems with review and oversight. Eight projects out of thousands accounted for nearly 90 percent of the reported emissions reductions. That level of concentration should have triggered immediate scrutiny.
More importantly, the implied scale of the original reductions was physically implausible. The erroneous data suggested that electrification upgrades to a relatively small number of buildings produced emissions savings comparable to a majority of statewide residential emissions. That conclusion does not survive even a basic reality check.
The fact that such numbers passed through review and into a public dashboard suggests a system that relied too heavily on automated outputs and not enough on common-sense validation.
Why the Cost-Per-Ton Claim Falls Apart
Because those inflated reductions were baked into the totals, they also distorted the program’s cost-effectiveness claims. Once the corrected emissions figures are applied, the widely cited $40-per-ton number collapses.
Using the same spending totals but corrected emissions reductions, the implied cost per ton rises into the hundreds of dollars. That places many projects well above the state’s own carbon allowance price and common estimates of marginal abatement costs. Whether those projects are still worth funding is a policy choice, but the claim that the program delivers exceptionally low-cost emissions reductions is no longer supported by the data.
Lifetime Projections and Boundary Problems
The report also mixes near-term spending with long-term modeled emissions reductions, often extending decades into the future. While lifetime accounting can be appropriate, presenting the result as a simple per-ton figure without emphasizing time horizons overstates certainty and efficiency.
In addition, some emissions reductions are attributed to partial system components, such as electrified infrastructure, without clearly accounting for the full set of assets and operational changes required for those reductions to occur. Emissions do not fall because infrastructure exists; they fall because it is used in place of higher-emitting alternatives.
Why This Matters for Policy
The central issue is not whether climate policy is justified. It is whether the state is accurately reporting what its spending achieves.
When a flagship report relies on extreme outliers, contains admitted data entry errors of massive scale, and continues to circulate headline figures after corrections are known, it undermines confidence not just in one program, but in public climate accounting more broadly.
Good policy can withstand honest math. It cannot withstand math that collapses under minimal scrutiny.
A Necessary Reset
Before lawmakers rely on analyses like this to justify further taxes or expanded programs, the state needs a reset. Corrected totals should be prominent, not buried in update notes. Outliers should be disclosed and explained, not averaged away. Lifetime projections should be clearly distinguished from measured outcomes.
Climate policy succeeds when it is credible. Credibility begins with numbers that add up.
