State of the System: Climate

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Climate

Climate change is already affecting Oregon's economy, environment, and way of life. The evidence is stark: wildfires, flooding, landslides, and other extreme weather have caused loss of life, damaged our roads, destroyed homes, and cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars each year. We are taking action through programs dedicated to:

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. Greenhouse gas emissions from transportation make up approximately 35% of total emissions in Oregon.
Making every mile driven clean by electrifying the transportation system, with a focus on improving access to public charging infrastructure.
Reducing the agency's carbon footprint.
Building a transportation system that is resilient and adaptable to the effects of climate change and can recover quickly from extreme weather events.

Oregon is on track to reduce emissions 60% from transportation by 2050.

A stacked line chart that shows the Oregon Statewide Transportation Strategy vision trend line and plans and projected trend lines from 2018 and 2022 through 2050. These trend lines are indexed from the year 1990 and show that Oregon is on track to reduce emissions 60% from transportation by 2050.

Chart source: Oregon Transportation Emissions website

ODOT, along with the Oregon Departments of Environmental Quality, Energy, and Land Conservation and Development are implementing the Oregon Statewide Transportation Strategy (STS) to reduce emissions by cleaning up each vehicle mile driven and reducing how often and how far people drive.
Collectively, these efforts are projected to lead to around a 60% reduction in Oregon's transportation emissions by 2050.

Learn more about progress on the Oregon Transportation Emissions website:

Vehicle emissions peaked in 2007 and have since declined

Vehicle emissions* in Oregon peaked in 2007 at 25.35 Million Metric Tons (MMT) of CO2.
The most recent emissions data from 2021 shows vehicle emissions at 21.66 MMT.

Vehicle emissions data include on and off-road sources as well as aviation.

We are adding public EV charging stations to make every mile driven clean.

Electrifying our transportation system is a key strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and move Oregon towards a cleaner future.

ODOT's role is to fund public electric vehicle charging infrastructure. While most charging happens at home, public charging is needed for multi-unit dwellings, at workplaces, and for longer distance trips. ODOT provides funding to private entities who own, install and maintain the infrastructure.

Oregon needs over 8,000 public fast-charging (DCFC) ports and over 12,000 public level 2 ports by 2030.

As of November 2024, there are nearly 4,000 total public ports in Oregon.

Public Level 2 and DC Fast Charging Ports in Oregon by Year: 2019 to 2024 (YTD): A column chart showing the number of public DC fast charging (DCFC) ports and public level 2 charging ports by year from 2019 to 2024 (YTD). The number of public charging ports has grown from just over 1,500 in 2019 to almost 4,000 in 2024 (YTD). Ports funded with ODOT-administered federal and state grants include 130 programmed and 87 built DCFC ports, and 547 programmed and 323 built Level 2 ports.

Source: Alternative Fuels Data Center, updated November 2024

ODOT has funded over 1,000 ports (over 400 have been built and nearly 700 more are programmed).

Many of these come from ODOTs Community Charging Rebates Program which adds level 2 ports across the state and focuses on rural or disadvantaged communities (140 have been built in these areas to date).
ODOT is also building out an interconnected north-south and east-west network of DC fast charging stations as part of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program.

Contractors have been selected to develop the first NEVI corridors along I-5, I-205, and US 97.
ODOT has received several additional federal grants to develop charging stations, including: $10 million to fix broken chargers, nearly $11 million to infuse into our Community Charging Rebates Program, and around $20 million for medium and heavy-duty charging along I-5 (with funding to California and Washington to do the same).

ODOT’s efforts to add public charging infrastructure will help reduce range anxiety and improve accessibility for all users. Those efforts combined with private sector investments, rules and regulations, greater availability of vehicles, and purchase incentive programs will help to increase electric vehicle use.

As of September 2024, there are over 100,000 electric vehicles registered in Oregon.
Oregon is registering around 2,000 more electric vehicles each month.

We are working to reduce greenhouse gases that we emit from construction, road maintenance and agency operations

The Sustainability Program works with agency experts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our work. We follow our Sustainability Plan and focus on four areas: transitioning our vehicles to hybrid and electric; making our facilities more energy efficient; using low-carbon construction materials; and green public procurement.
In 2021, we inventoried greenhouse gas emissions from our work and learned some baseline statistics:

Our average carbon footprint is equivalent to about 44,000 cars driving continuously for a year.
70% of our carbon footprint comes from materials and fuels used to construct and maintain the transportation system.

A doughnut chart showing the 4-year average total ODOT Greenhouse Gas Emissions from fiscal years 2016-2019 in three categories and their percentage of the total. Greenhouse Gas Emissions from ODOT Equipment and Facilities totaled 39,404 metric tons of CO2e and represented 22% of the total, Greenhouse Gas Emissions from ODOT electricity Use totaled 14,588 metric tons of CO2 and represented 8% of the total, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Activities Resulting from ODOT Investments totaled 128,600 metric tons of CO2e and represented 70% of the total.

2021 ODOT Greenhouse Gas baseline Inventory

Since then, we've been working to lower emissions from the fuels we use.

As of FY2023, 45% of agency diesel fuel was bio or renewable diesel, which emits less emissions than fossil diesel.
We also own 357 vehicles that use E-85, a type of gas that burns cleaner than regular gas, and 22 hybrid or plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Other focus areas include conserving resources, such as water and energy in ODOT business and operations and efforts like the Oregon Solar Highways Program.

We are improving how we prepare, respond and recover from climate extremes

The effect of climate change — like flooding, sweltering heat, wildfires, and other extreme weather — threaten our transportation system statewide. Those threats are expected to get worse in the coming decades.

72% of the state highway system (5,954 miles) is at high risk of inland flooding by 2050.
71% of the state highway system (5,872 miles) is projected to have more frequent high heat events by 2050.
820 state highway miles are expected to be susceptible to coastal erosion by 2050.

Photo of emergency services ODOT vehicles driving toward the Chiloquin fire as it is burning trees while a freight truck passes by.

Responding to extreme weather events and repairing the damage they cause is expensive. And costs are rising every few years.

Wildfire-related emergency road maintenance costs totaled $58.6 million from 2013-2021.
On average, we spend an additional $18 million every 5 years on wildfires, flooding, and other extreme weather events.

In contrast, the cost to proactively address risks is much lower than having to repair a road once it fails. Every $4 spent on proactive resilience saves about $25 in repairs.

We need to be proactive and prepare the transportation system to withstand climate change and extreme weather.

ODOT has developed a resilience needs priority map to guide investment decisions. The map integrates human resilience by using ODOT’s social disparity data. Click on the image above to visit an interactive GIS map and explore more data.

The Climate Adaptation and Resilience Roadmap is our proactive approach. It provides policies and strategies for making adaptation and resilience a regular part of how we invest in and maintain the multi-modal transportation system.

Visit our Climate and Sustainability website or Oregon's Transportation Emissions website to learn more

To submit a question or comment:

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Strategic Action Plan Progress Report

Reduce Emissions and Electrify Oregon's Transportation System

2024-2028 Strategic Actions

Annual - Fund and direct the deployment of transportation electrification public charging infrastructure.

2026 - Apply a climate lens to ODOT investment decisions, increasing investments that result in emissions reductions or infrastructure that is more resilient to climate change and extreme weather.

2026 - Reduce GHG emissions from ODOT’s fleets and buildings.

2026 - Develop passenger vehicle miles per capita reduction strategies to align with Oregon's Transportation Plan target of 20% reduction by 2050 and monitor and report on progress.

2028 - Reduce GHG emissions from materials used by ODOT.

2024 Efforts Underway

Strategic Action Plan

Dispersing the first round of funding ($1.75M) for the Community Charging Rebates program's completed project and launching the second round of funding ($2.5M).
Deploying federal EV Charger Reliability and Accessibility Accelerator grant to fix broken EV chargers.
Creating a process to embed climate change considerations into our investment decisions.
Updating our facilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Expanding enrollment in community solar subscriptions.
Developing strategies to reduce VMT per captia.
Implementing a new state law that requires our construction materials to emit less greenhouse gas emissions.

Other Ongoing Efforts

Integrating resilience corridors into the Oregon Highway Plan update.
Integrating climate change and extreme weather considerations into how we manage our roads and bridges, and into our emergency response planning.
Requiring siting, design, and development of new and reconstructed transportation infrastructure to reduce the impact on environmentally and culturally sensitive areas; enhance and avoid the degradation of the natural and cultural environment; and protect water, air, and wildlife.