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RI not on track to meet climate goals, latest state assessment finds

By Sofie Rudin

When state scientists released their annual report on greenhouse gas emissions for 2016, they had good news to share: the state had achieved its 2020 goal ahead of schedule.

That goal was to reduce climate-warming fossil fuel emissions to 10 percent below a 1990 baseline.

But updated numbers released by the state Friday show the achievement was fleeting.

In 2018, the latest year for which data have been analyzed, total emissions rose for a second year in a row.

“This recent uptick carries the state’s emissions 1.76% above the 1990 baseline, which is not in line with the substantial reductions needed to meet the 2021 Act on Climate mandatory emissions reduction goals,” the Department of Environmental Management said in a statement.

“The state’s recent rise in [greenhouse gas] emissions further demonstrates the need to invest in renewable energy, electric transportation, and protected land.”

The Act on Climate, signed by Governor Dan McKee last year, requires the state to cut emissions by 10 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, 45 percent of 1990 levels by 2030, and 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2040. The state must zero out emissions by 2050.

The legislation, hailed by environmental groups as a landmark achievement, also includes an enforcement mechanism that allows “all persons” to bring legal action against the state in superior court.

The latest inventory shows that, over the decade for which data is available, the state has not made sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions despite e orts to improve energy e ciency and transition to renewable energy sources.

Emissions were higher in 2018 than 2017 for each of the top five emissions-generating sectors, including transportation, electricity consumption and industrial processes. The two sectors that saw the greatest year-over-year increase were residential and commercial heating. In a statement, DEM attributed this to colder temperatures in 2018 requiring more fuel for heating.

Between 1990 and 2018, the commercial heating and transportation sectors saw declines in emissions, while emissions associated with electricity consumption and residential heating rose. The state’s greatest long-term increase in emissions, by sector, has been in industrial processes. DEM attributed the latest increase in this sector to a change in federal calculations.

DEM Acting Director Terry Gray called the latest inventory “disappointing,” and he said it is a “call to action” to cut emissions. But he also sees reason for optimism.

“The context has changed a lot since 2018,” Gray said. “We’re looking back in time here and it’s not particularly surprising because we really hadn’t done anything to limit emissions at that point.”

“A lot has changed since then. And when I think about how much work is going on right now in Rhode Island to respond to climate change, I’m confident that we’re going to make progress. But it’s not going to show up for a while on those types of data sheets.”

Gray also noted that both Massachusetts and Connecticut saw upticks in emissions in 2018, although the increases in those states were significantly smaller than the eight percent increase in Rhode Island’s inventory.

“With higher temperatures, rising sea levels, heavier rainfalls, more frequent and intense storms, and clear impacts on our forestlands and growing seasons, Rhode Island already is seeing tangible results of climate change,” said Governor Dan McKee in a press release on Friday. “This GHG emissions inventory draws a straight line to its causes.”

Outside groups have raised concerns that the current method of tallying emissions is significantly under-counting the state’s contribution to climate change because it fails to adequately account for methane leaking from gas pipes.

The state is set to publish an update to its greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan in December.

A truck drives through high tide flooding in Wickford. Such floods are expected to worsen as climate change causes sea level to rise

Reporter Sofie Rudin can be reached at srudin@thepublicsradio.org Photo by Sofie Rudin / The Public's Radio