OLYMPIA, Wash. – The State of Washington Department of Ecology issued an “official rebuke” of a recent report released by the U.S. Department of Energy that said the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on climate was not as severe as many thought.
The State of Washington Department of Ecology also released their own report on the science of human-caused climate change.
“Climate change is real. The continued assault on science by the Trump Administration is putting the lives of Washingtonians at risk,” Governor Bob Ferguson said.
Casey Sixkiller, the director of the Washington Department of Ecology, said that the impacts of climate change are already affecting Washington and are putting lives and livelihoods at risk.
“Denying climate change by cherry-picking information won’t alter the reality on the ground, where our communities and ecosystems are experiencing the damage firsthand,” said Sixkiller.
Sixkiller also sent a letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who published the U.S. Department of Energy’s report, and said that the report omits peer-reviewed evidence and violates scientific integrity.
In Wright’s introduction to the U.S. Department of Energy’s report, he wrote that “Climate change is a challenge—not a catastrophe. But misguided policies based on fear rather than facts could truly endanger human well-being.”
The U.S. Department of Energy’s report was cited by Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin when he announced he would .
In the State of Washington Department of Ecology’s summary of their own findings, they contrasted several claims from the two studies.
They said that while the U.S. Department of Energy’s report claims that climate change impacts are overstated, their own scientific review claims that Washington has already warmed 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900 and extreme heat days are expected to increase six to nine times by the 2050s.
They added that the 2021 heat dome was a deadly weather-related disaster that killed 126 people and contributed to hundreds of other deaths.
They also said that the U.S. Department of Energy minimizes the influence of greenhouse gas emissions on climate change, while their own report claims that human sources of greenhouse emissions “unequivocally” cause climate change.
Both reports focus heavily on findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a panel of international experts established by the United Nations and World Meteorological Organization in 1988.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrote in their 2023 assessment, the most published assessment they have, that “Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming.”
The previous assessment from the group was taken down by the U.S. government, according to the State of Washington Department of Ecology.
The State of Washington Department of Ecology’s report is called the “2025 Summary Report on the Science of Human Caused Climate Change and Recommendations for Washington State’s Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Limits.”
The U.S. Department of Energy’s report is titled “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate.”
