Rhode Island needs to put the pedal to the metal on its clean energy transition – while reducing its reliance on driving – if it wants to achieve its own decarbonization mandates, according to a new report by the R.I. Department of Environmental Management.
The 9.52 million metric tons of carbon dioxide produced from travel, buildings, and other human activity across Rhode Island in 2023 marks a 1.4% increase over 2022 level emissions, according to the 41-page analysis published Nov. 21.
Even worse: The long-term pace of progress, while showing modest reductions in emissions, is too slow to meet deadlines set under the state’s Act on Climate law.
The 2021 decarbonization mandate requires that Rhode Island achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, with incremental progress markers, including a 45% reduction from 1990 levels by 2030.
If Rhode Island continues to decrease its fossil fuel reliance at the same rate as it has over the last five years, it will miss the 2030 target, while further jeopardizing its 2050 goal, the report warns.
“Significant decarbonization of transportation, electricity consumption, and buildings are instrumental to attain net-zero emissions by mid-century,” the report states.
The warning comes amid major shifts in federal incentives and policies under the Trump administration that are expected to make state clean energy mandates harder to achieve.
“The Trump administration’s rollback of clean-energy initiatives and its cuts to billions of dollars in funding have intentionally undermined the clean-energy future for states across the nation,” Gov. Daniel J. McKee said in a statement on Nov. 21. “As federal policies continue to shift, we will keep working with our partners to chart a practical and responsible path forward on reducing emissions.”
Leading the way is the Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council, a consortium of state agencies charged with helping Rhode Island meet its decarbonization mandates.
Initial projections reported by the council suggested the state was poised to fall short of that 2030 milestone, though the 2022 report emphasized that the model was “simple” and “preliminary.” A more detailed report will be published by the end of this year, informed in part by the latest state greenhouse gas emissions.
Terry Gray, DEM director and chair of the council, called the latest emissions results “disappointing,” but noted that it mirrors national trends which saw a rise in travel-related emissions in 2023.
Transportation remains the biggest culprit of Rhode Island’s carbon emissions, responsible for 37% of emissions in 2023 overall. The main driver was highway vehicle emissions, which jumped more than 6% over the prior year, according to data reported by the Rhode Island Division of Statewide Planning. While the increase partly reflects a resurgence in Rhode Island-registered vehicles, it also may be due to better reporting since the state switched from federal to state-level data sources, according to DEM’s report.
As ground travel came into focus, airplane emissions data became a guessing game because the Rhode Island Airport Corp. declined to provide emissions data associated with Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport, according to DEM’s report. The “abrupt switch” in refusing to release data mandated by state law in turn forced the state environmental agency to estimate plane emissions based on federal fuel reports, which are less accurate.
The report did not explain why the state’s quasi-public airport agency stopped supplying data.
“It is critical to the scientific integrity of this publication that RIAC provides DEM with complete aircraft operations data for all six state airports,” the report stated.
Bill Fischer, a spokesperson for the airport corporation, said the report’s assertion that the agency declined to provide data was inaccurate. Fischer instead explained that the state law mandating air quality reports expired in July 2023, and that without it, the airport corporation no longer had legal authority to spend money gathering and reporting emissions data under federal aviation law.
“It is also important to understand why the reporting requirement expired,” Fischer wrote in an email. “After 14 years of data collection and analysis – including data from the COVID-19 period when aviation activity dropped dramatically – no causal link was established between airport operations and the health impacts cited in Warwick. This further demonstrated that airport activity was not the primary driver of those readings.”
Fischer also said aircraft operations data necessary for emissions modeling was publicly available on the corporation’s website.
But the expired statute does not exempt the airport corporation, nor any other state department, agency or commission, from complying with the rules of the Act on Climate law, Evan LaCross, a spokesperson for the Department of Environmental Management, said in an emailed response Friday night. The law offers general language authorizing state groups to develop their own rules and regulations to comply with decarbonization mandates. As DEM reads it, providing “complete aircraft operations emissions data” falls into the airport corporation’s authority and duty, LaCross said.
Home heating accounted for another 19.6% of state emissions – the second largest source, though it dropped slightly from the previous year thanks to a milder winter and improvements in energy efficiency and weatherization. It was not clear how a 2022 state rebate program helping residential and commercial building owners offset costs to convert to heat pumps affected total building heating emissions, according to the report.
Electricity consumption, the third-highest emissions factor, remained flat year-over-year, according to the report. Nearly a quarter of electricity use came from renewable sources, but the electricity supplied by regional grid operator ISO New England was more carbon-intense than in previous years, the report noted. State electricity-related emissions are expected to decline significantly starting next year, when the 704-megawatt Revolution Wind project begins supplying power to Rhode Island and Connecticut.
The inventory also considers emissions from industrial product uses, agriculture and waste, while accounting for trees and natural lands that absorb some of the greenhouse gases released.
Nancy Lavin is a senior staff writer for the
Rhode island Current.
