Transportation affects and is affected by climate change. Cars, trucks, and buses emit greenhouse gases responsible for climate change, and transportation infrastructure is threatened by things like sea level rise, flash flooding, heat waves, and other extreme weather.
COG and the TPB have undertaken climate mitigation and preparedness efforts to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt transportation facilities and development patterns to the effects of climate change that are already underway or unavoidable. In 2015, COG's Multi-Sector Working Group (MSWG) was tasked with identifying viable, cross-sector solutions for reducing the region’s greenhouse gas emissions. COG convened the MSWG following a joint request by the TPB, Metropolitan Washington Air Quality Committee (MWAQC), and the COG Board’s Climate, Energy, and Environment Policy Committee (CEEPC).