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Climate Smart Communities Scenarios Project

Planning and conservation  ›  Regional planning and policy  ›  Climate change  ›  Climate Smart Scenarios

The Oregon Legislature has required the Portland metropolitan region to reduce per capita greenhouse gas emissions from cars and small trucks by 2035. Learn what the region is doing to create livable communities and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Climate Smart Communities Scenarios Project was developed to help show us how the choices we make today about how we live, work and get around will affect our air quality and the sustainability of the Portland metropolitan region into the future.

Hear more local perspectives on building great communities  Go

Where we are today

To stimulate thinking about our choices for the future, Metro is working with community and business leaders and elected officials across the region to answer these and other questions:

• Which strategies are most effective for supporting community visions and reducing greenhouse gas emissions?
• What will our choices cost and what can we afford?
• What are the risks, opportunities and tradeoffs of our choices?

There is no single solution to meet the state's target. Communities will each have a role to play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions that supports their local vision.

In a three-phase process, the region studies scenarios that represent what the region could look like in the future, with different land use and transportation policies in place. The first phase, in 2011, consisted of testing strategies and policies on a regional level.

Download the Phase 1 findings report

As part of the first phase, Metro planning staff researched strategies used to reduce emissions in communities across the nation and around the world. This work resulted in a toolbox describing major strategy areas: community design, pricing, marketing and incentives, roads, fleet, and technology.

View the toolbox report

In the second phase in 2012, Metro worked with community leaders to shape three scenarios to be tested in the summer of 2013 and the criteria to be used to evaluate them. The results of the analysis will be released in fall 2013. Recently adopted community plans and visions such as the Beaverton Civic Plan, McLoughlin Area Plan, South Hillsboro Plan, AmberGlen Community Plan, Portland Plan, Gresham Downtown Plan and transportation system plans from across the region were used to inform three possible scenarios.

This work by local planning staff allows for unique community goals to be realized even as we reach for the regionwide goal of emissions reduction.

Looking ahead

Working together, cities, counties and regional partners will decide which elements from each of the three scenarios should go forward into one preferred scenario for the region to adopt in December 2014.

Considerations for developing a preferred scenario include:

• Costs and benefits across public health, environmental, economic and social equity goals
• Financial implications
• Public support and political will

Through a collaborative process involving hundreds of civic leaders, health officials, business owners, and community members, Metro recognizes that a one-size-fits-all approach won’t meet the needs of our diverse communities. Instead, a combination of many local approaches, woven together, will create a diverse yet shared vision for how we can keep this a great place for years to come.