Climate Crisis

Background
Benton County leadership has a long history of a commitment to environmental stewardship and integrity. Specifically, the County embarked upon recognizing the current global Climate Crisis and working to reduce the County's greenhouse gas emissions. The first Resolution in 2017 established many deliverables: the development of a Climate Action Plan, collection of resource usage at County facilities, the calculation of greenhouse gas emissions per year, and annual updates.  In 2018, the Commissioners signed a Resolution that adopted a greenhouse gas emissions goal and Climate Action Plan.

In February 2020, the Commissioners signed a Resolution that addressed two issues. First, the County officially recognized the current global situation as a Climate Crisis. Second, the Resolution established a more strict greenhouse gas emissions goal. The new goal is Benton County government will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% of 2010 levels by 2030 and be net-zero by 2050.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory
Benton County conducts its emissions Inventory annually to analyze resource consumption of internal County operations. The Inventory provides information on which utilities contribute most to our carbon emissions, and what actions we can take to reduce them. The analysis will be used to measure progress of our greenhouse gas emission reduction goal for the internal Climate Action Plan, which was endorsed by the Board of Commissioners in September 2018. The Annual Presentations - that include the Inventory, resource use data, & mitigation activities - are for review below.