The President’s announcement that the US is withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement set off a flurry of pronouncements from local politicians about their commitment to #ActOnClimate.

Here’s a quick fact check of these claims.

Governor Inslee

The Governor claimed on Twitter that he has an “aggressive effort to promote EVs.” The Governor flew to Paris to be part of the agreement announcement in 2015. While there, he announced the Washington State Electric Vehicles Initiative and yesterday he highlighted it as a success. The state’s own data show this is false.

Results Washington shows the state is 22 percent below its own targets for electric vehicles. In fact, it is missing the targets in all three targeted areas of transportation emissions: plug-in electrics, vehicle greenhouse gas emissions, and vehicle fuel efficiency.

Dow Constantine

The King County Executive claimed on Twitter, “innovation and smart policies are reducing carbon pollution.” The county’s own report says this is false.

The graphic below is from their most recent assessment of carbon reduction goals. First, the report notes that “overall emissions continue to rise,” not fall as Constantine claims. Further, King County government is missing its own target by a huge margin, reducing carbon emissions by only 1.2 percent rather than the 15 percent target.

Mayor Ed Murray

The outgoing mayor tweeted a statement from his Director of the Office of Sustainability and Environment that Seattle is “not waiting – we were never waiting.” He also tweeted a statement from Councilmember O’Brien that Seattle “will live up to the #ParisAgreement.” There is a reason Seattle doesn’t mention the past.

In 2005, Seattle promised to meet the Kyoto carbon reduction targets. It failed. This time, we are told, will be different. Additionally, in the report released last year, they admit, “we are not currently on pace to meet our 2030 climate goals.”

So, they did not meet their last goals and they are not on target to meet the existing goals.

Considering their record of failure, one might think the Governor, County Executive and Mayor were simply attacking others to draw attention away from themselves.