SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Governor Jay Inslee of the U.S. state of Washington reaffirmed on Tuesday his call for state lawmakers to pass a clean fuel standard to ease the impact of climate change.

In an annual State of the State address to Washington legislators, Inslee warned that although Washington has done a tremendous job, the state is still 30 percent short of its 2035 statutory requirement of having emissions drop 25 percent below 1990 levels.

"While we've made progress, we still haven't addressed the nearly half of our emissions that comes from the transportation sector," he said.

He urged the lawmakers to approve the Clean Fuel Standard to cut the emissions, which he called "an extremely effective tool available" to do the work.

"That standard has been in place for years in every other state and province on the West Coast, with little impact on fuel costs and significant impact on carbon emissions," he said, referring to the states of Oregon and California that have adopted the measure for clean fuel.

A recent survey by Washington State Department of Ecology showed transportation emissions accounted for 45 percent of the state's total, with aviation fuels representing about 9.5 percent of the overall emissions across the state.

"Washington state is not a state of climate denial. It is a state of climate science acceptance," Inslee told Washington lawmakers on the second day of the scheduled 60-day legislative session.

"This is a year for climate action," he said.