Greenhouse gas emissions were up in 2021. Will RI meet climate goals?
PROVIDENCE – Greenhouse gas emissions in Rhode Island from things like tailpipe pollution and generation of electricity rebounded in 2021 after two years of reductions, according to an assessment released Monday by the Department of Environmental Management.
Despite going up 8.9% from 2020 in planet-warming carbon pollution, Rhode Island is still in compliance with the Act on Climate, the state law that mandates steady cuts in greenhouse gases with the ultimate goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.
The law’s first interim target required the state to reduce greenhouse gases 10% from 1990 levels by 2020.
With the 2021 numbers factored in, Rhode Island’s emissions have dropped 14.4% since 1990.
“This inventory should serve as a call to action that we must continue to work collaboratively to advance progress toward the next benchmark mandated by the Act on Climate to address the effects of climate change that Rhode Island’s communities are increasingly contending with,” Gov. Dan McKee said in a statement.
What caused the rebound? Lifting of COVID restrictions
The year-on-year increase was expected. When the emissions data were released last year, environmental regulators said that restrictions in 2020 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic had tamped down pollution levels. Lockdowns, for example, kept people from driving as much.
Regulators warned that the numbers could bounce back as life returned to normal.
That appears to be exactly what happened, said DEM director Terry Gray. With people back on the road, transportation emissions climbed 5.4%. Other states experienced a similar phenomenon.
Emissions can fluctuate from one year to the next. From 2017 to 2018, they spiked across New England due in part to colder weather. It’s the long-term trend that’s important.
Although the state is still meeting the Act on Climate’s 2020 target, the latest numbers don’t bode well for getting to the next level of cuts set out by the law.
It requires that by 2030 Rhode Island must reduce emissions by 45% from 1990 levels.
But Gray said he expects the numbers going forward from 2021 to be more positive. That was the year McKee signed the Act on Climate into law. It was also when Congress passed the first of two big bills focused on investments in countering climate change that included tens of millions of dollars for Rhode Island.
“When you think of everything that has happened since then, the game has changed,” said Gray, who also chairs the Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council, the government panel in charge of climate policy in Rhode Island.
Still uncertain whether Rhode Island will meet next goal for emissions cuts
As in other states, there’s a threeyear lag on emissions calculations in Rhode Island because it takes time to get essential data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The delay means that environmental authorities can’t quantify recent setbacks or progress on emissions and states may be in a different place than what the data show.
Modeling released late last year by the Acadia Center and the Rocky Mountain Institute, clean energy groups that have been working with the state, projected that Rhode Island would fall just short of the 2030 Act on Climate target. Their projections are based on a plan for continuing emissions cuts that was approved last year by the Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council.
The updated plan calls for more investments in offshore wind power, a modernization of the power grid, replacing gas-powered cars with electric models and converting heating systems that use fossil fuels to systems with electric heat pumps.
Gray told legislators in January that the modeling done by the Acadia Center and the Rocky Mountain Institute was “very preliminary” and that a more precise assessment would be conducted as part of a climate action strategy for the state due by the end of next year.
The strategy will lay out in detail what Rhode Island needs to do to meet the goals set out by the Act on Climate. Gray said Monday that the DEM is in the midst of soliciting proposals from consultants to work on the strategy and that a winning bidder will be selected this summer.
He said that with all the funding available to transition from fossil fuels, Rhode Island has a big opportunity to make deep changes to its economy.
“And if we don’t get enough out of these programs, it’s a missed opportunity,” he said.