SEATTLE — Projects funded by Washington’s Climate Commitment Act have not been nearly as effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions as previously thought, state officials acknowledged this week.

Officials with the state's Department of Commerce overshot their own estimates by such a significant margin that on Tuesday they published a release about the error. The projects the department touted amounted to just under 4% of their original estimates.

The overestimate is the result of a simple error, state officials said. But it comes at a particularly sensitive time. Influential opponents of the Climate Commitment Act have long called the policy ineffective and a way to build a slush fund. And Gov. Bob Ferguson, who supports the program, wants to shift a huge chunk of the money it has raised toward tax credits unrelated to climate issues.

Staff within the state's Department of Ecology are now fully reviewing all their emissions data for projects funded by the Climate Commitment Act and will more thoroughly check their data in the future to avoid similar mistakes. But already the chorus of those accusing program managers of sloppy accounting is growing louder.

The Climate Commitment Act, which passed in 2021, requires the state’s top polluters to buy allowances in quarterly auctions for every ton of greenhouse gas they pump into the atmosphere. That money — more than $4.3 billion raised so far — is then set aside for a specific set of purposes, largely meant to transition Washington away from fossil fuels, cut emissions or help those most at risk of a warming planet.

But precisely where that money goes has been a subject of intense debate, even a focal point for a 2024 campaign to recall the policy entirely (which failed by a wide margin). So, in November, Ecology released its most comprehensive report yet on where the money has been spent, all formatted in an easily accessible dashboard.

Within that report, Ecology outlined more than 3,600 projects across the state, which are expected to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 8.6 million tons over the lifespan of that work.

That’s the equivalent of taking nearly half the gas and diesel vehicles off Washington’s roads for an entire year, department officials said.

But that 8.6 million-ton estimate is where they were wrong. The actual number is much smaller.

In reality, those 3,600 projects are expected to cut emissions by nearly 308,000 tons over their lifespan, 1/27th of their original estimate.

Former state Sen. Joe Nguyễn, who now heads Commerce (but is soon leaving), said the error came from a rounding issue for a single program funded by the climate account.

“This was literally just a fat-fingers situation,” Nguyễn told The Seattle Times.

But Commerce’s release said staff actually erred with eight rebate projects to help electrify homes, purchase new appliances and assist low-income and vulnerable communities. Those eight projects were originally expected to cut emissions by some 7.5 million tons. Corrected data now figures they’ll amount to some 78,000 tons, just over 1% of the first projection.

Other top officials within Ecology and Commerce acknowledged the mistake, in the release.

“Accurate data is essential to guiding our state’s work to reduce carbon pollution,” said Joel Creswell, who manages Ecology’s Climate Pollution Reduction Program.

“Corrective measures are already in place to strengthen our processes and prevent similar errors in the future,” said Jennifer Grove, assistant director for Commerce.

While state officials have acknowledged the mistake and said they corrected their annual report on the topic, Ecology’s online dashboard still gives out the incorrect emissions data.

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