City of Ferndale Climate Planning

May 2025

Welcome and Overview

The City of Ferndale is measuring our community’s greenhouse gas emissions and considering policies to help reduce our impact on the environment. This planning will help make Ferndale a more resilient community and support other priorities—including health, housing, and transportation—that are affected by climate change.

Washington’s New Climate Planning Law

In 2023 the Washington state legislature passed a law (HB 1181) requiring counties and cities to prepare for a changing climate and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The law directed cities to do this planning as part of the comprehensive plan update process.

 

Comprehensive plans establish a community’s vision for the next 20 years, across different “elements” such as Transportation, Land Use, and Economic Development. Ferndale’s next update to our comprehensive plan is due at the end of 2025, and in response to this new law we are developing a Climate Element for our plan.

A comprehensive plan includes goals and supporting policies for different subject areas (elements).


An example from Ferndale’s Transportation element:

Climate Policies

Example Goal and Policy

Goal 4: The City will work to secure adequate funding sources for transportation.

Policy F: The City will seek to fund a minimum average of thirty percent of capital project costs through grants.

Climate policies either reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that contribute to climate change or build community resilience against climate change impacts. Some policies can support both goals at once.

Definitions

4847-Carbon Neutral

GHG emissions reduction (a.k.a. climate mitigation)

means taking action to reduce or eliminate carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping emissions, the quantity of which can determine the extent and severity of climate change over time.

Climate resilience

is "the ongoing process of anticipating, preparing for, and adapting to changes in climate and minimizing negative impacts to our natural systems, infrastructure, and communities," as defined by state law.

Many climate policies also support other goals important to Ferndale by providing co-benefits—additional social, economic, and environmental benefits beyond the policy’s climate considerations.

4847-Carbon Neutral

Example 1:

a GHG reduction policy that supports more compact, mixed-use development near transit:

Example 2:

a resilience policy that supports planting drought-tolerant street trees to adapt to hotter drier summers:

Legend

Ferndale is working this spring and summer on several parallel efforts, shown below. These efforts will culminate in a set of climate goals, and a set of proposed measures and policies that will be incorporated into the City of Ferndale’s 2025 Comprehensive Plan. Ferndale will use guidance prepared by the Washington Department of Commerce to frame these policies and then adapt them to suit our local conditions and priorities.

How the City of Ferndale will select climate policies

1.

A GHG Inventory

This technical analysis identifies the scale and scope of emissions produced in our community. Knowing this will allow us to identify policies and measures we can adopt to lower those emissions.

2.

A Climate Policy Advisory Team

This group is made up of City staff, elected officials, technical experts, and community members. We are working with this group to identify and evaluate possible climate goals and policies.

3.

Tribal Engagement and Community Engagement

We are inviting the Nooksack Indian Tribe and the Lummi Nation to collaborate with us on our planning efforts, and we are asking Ferndale community members’ input at community events.

GHG Emissions Inventory Findings

This pie chart shows Ferndale's GHG emissions, broken down by their sources. In 2023, our community's largest sources of emissions were electricity, natural gas and transportation, which accounted for more than two-thirds of all GHG emissions.

GHGs are reported collectively as carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e). CO2e is a measure that standardizes each GHG according to its global warming potential. Global warming potential values quantify the relative impact of different climate-related pollutants, expressed as the amount of potential climate warming a pollutant may cause over a 100-year period relative to carbon dioxide (CO2).

Timeline

The City of Ferndale is creating early and continuous opportunities for community engagement in the development of its Climate Element. We encourage participation from all parts of our community.

November 2024

City staff and consultants begin analyzing our community’s emissions and start the engagement process.

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March 31–April 22, 2025

City distributes a survey seeking community feedback.

June 2025

City uses community feedback and emissions analysis to develop greenhouse gas reduction goals and a plan for achieving those goals.

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Summer 2025

Draft climate element is made available to the community for review and comment.

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Summer - Fall 2025

Community comments on proposed updates to City code as a result of the climate element and other comprehensive plan updates.

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Winter 2025-2026

City adopts a Climate Element as part of its comprehensive plan update.

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Stay informed

Submit public comment or get added to the Comprehensive Plan Update email list by emailing comment@cityofferndale.org.