By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI
News staff
The state climate change
council recently met for the first time since November to report on progress
and the challenges ahead for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and preparing
Rhode Island for climate change.
Shaun O’Rourke, director
of stormwater management and climate resiliency at the Rhode Island
Infrastructure Bank, said the financing agency is halfway through writing a
state resiliency plan, which will be sent to Gov. Gina Raimondo on behalf of
the Executive Climate Change Coordination Council (EC4) by July 1.
The adaptation plan will
include projects that will be funded through the Infrastructure
Bank, and other funding sources. O’Rourke said the agency hopes
to secure $20 million from the Green Economy and Clean Water bond referendum
that will likely be on the statewide ballot in November. A budget hearing on
the bond is scheduled for Feb. 28 at the Statehouse.
Potential projects include work on dams, roads, bridges, public water supplies, utilities, emergency preparedness, and habitat protection and education. Infrastructure will be rebuilt to adapt to warmer weather, sea-level rise, additional snow and rain, and changes in water temperature. The plan will identify projects that are ready to start; begin in two to five years; or take 10 years to launch.
The project ideas were
taken from public workshops held across the state last fall. Municipal planning
employees represented 35 percent of the 350 attendees. Additional public meetings
will be held this spring to review the plan.
Information and updates
on the Rhode Island resiliency plan and other state adaptation and mitigation
efforts are posted online.
Reducing
emissions
A year after the release
of the state mitigation plan.
Nick Ucci, deputy commissioner of the Office of Energy
Resources, explained that Rhode Island is on track to meet its 10 percent
emissions-reduction target by 2020. Longer-term goals, such as an 80 percent
reduction by 2050, require large investments to eliminate fossil fuels from the
transportation, heating and energy sectors.
“This is going to be
tough. This is going to be very difficult,” Ucci said during the EC4’s Feb 26
meeting. “It’s going to require innovation, technologies that we have yet to
imagine or develop.”
Meeting the long-term
targets, Ucci said, is “daunting” considering the inaction in
Washington, D.C.
But the speed of
innovation is cause for optimism. Ucci referred to the sudden emergence of
energy-storage systems as an example of a technology that looks poised to
benefit the power industry.
Environmental activist
and Brown University professor J. Timmons Roberts challenged the notion that
Rhode Island is on track to meet its near-term emission-reduction
targets. When the EC4 shifted from production-based accounting of
emissions to consumption-based accounting it left out greenhouse gases such as
methane released during natural-gas extraction and transportation, he said.
“It’s deeply
problematic. If you include its global-warming potential, it’s worse than
coal,” Roberts said of Rhode Island's lopsided reliance on natural gas.
Emission-reduction
targets, Roberts said, are based on outdated research. The goal of zero
emissions should be met by 2035 instead of 2050. Otherwise, Rhode Island
won't meet its commitment of keeping global temperatures below 2 degrees
Celsius, as set by the Paris Agreement.
Roberts said the Regional
Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) has been a modest
success, but the low cost of carbon credits doesn’t give power plants the
financial incentive to buy new equipment for lowering emissions.
Ucci said Rhode Island
has made strides in energy efficiency, renewable-energy incentives, improving
the power grid, and collaborating with neighboring states. A three-year
plan approved by the state's Public Utilities Commission(PUC) is expected
to reduce Rhode Island's carbon emissions by 3.75 million tons.
Rhode Island also has
launched renewable-energy initiatives that will reduce emissions and improve
the power grid, according to Ucci. In March 2017, Raimondo announced a
goal of 1,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2020. An energy-acquisition
agreement with Connecticut and Massachusetts recently brought 44 megawatts of
renewable power to the state.
Ucci said discussions
with National Grid are underway at the PUC to prepare the regional grid for
renewable power, electric vehicles and energy storage.
Janet
Coit, director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management
and chair of the EC4, said she sees promise in regional projects such as the
nine-state RGGI. The cap-and-trade programs allows power plants to buy
credits for each ton of carbon dioxide they emit. The proceeds have paid $2.8
billion across the region.
Rhode Island has received $60 million, which has been spent on renewable-energy and energy-efficiency projects. Some of the money paid for solar panels on state buildings and marketing costs for the Solarize discount solar-panel program. A tree-planting initiative and a subsidy to bring renewable energy to farms also received RGGI money.
Rhode Island has received $60 million, which has been spent on renewable-energy and energy-efficiency projects. Some of the money paid for solar panels on state buildings and marketing costs for the Solarize discount solar-panel program. A tree-planting initiative and a subsidy to bring renewable energy to farms also received RGGI money.
So far, RGGI has reduced
power plant carbon emissions in the region by 40 percent. Another 30 percent
emission reduction is expected between 2020 and 2030, according to officials.
New Jersey is expected
to rejoin RGGI, now that Chris Christy is no longer governor. Virginia
would also like to be a member.
“Particularly with the
lack of leadership at the federal level, watching this RGGI regional approach
increase is exciting,” Coit said.
Reducing climate
emissions from the transportation sector is a major challenge. Coit said it
would help if the federal government sticks with raising fuel-economy
standards.
Rhode Island is looking
to another regional partnership for help. The Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI)
brings together 11 Northeast/Mid-Atlantic states with the goal of reducing
emissions in the transportation sector. The Rhode Island Department of
Transportation and TCI will host three public listening sessions to address the
major changes to vehicles, public transportation, roads, and
infrastructure.
Some of the challenges
include ride-sharing services and autonomous vehicles.
“It could be that 10
years from now we have a completely different way of thinking about automobile ownership
and mobility,” said Macky McCleary, administrator for the state Division
of Public Utilities and Carriers.
McCleary called
autonomous vehicles an opportunity and a challenge. They will likely be
commonplace sooner than expected. The emissions impact of ride-sharing is
unknown, but it’s likely made the roads more crowded, according to
McCleary
Roberts said the
anticipated changes in transportation and energy can be met with a fee on all
fossil fuels entering the state.
“To be the leaders that
we want to be ... we need to be thinking much bigger,”he said.
In 2017, the General
Assembly ordered the EC4 to conduct a study on a carbon tax. Coit reported
that funds haven't been raised to pay for the study.
Pete Galvin of Nature's
Trust Rhode Island said recent research shows that global
warming will continue if all carbon emissions stopped
today. Therefore, planning should focus on removing carbon from the
atmosphere, he added.
“It’s not enough. These
goals don’t get you where you need to be,” Galvin said. “And they are just
goals. There is no enforcement.”
Climate
events
• The Rhode Island
Department of Health is sponsoring a talk From Puerto Rico to Rhode Island:
Raising Voices for Climate Justice. It will feature Elizabeth
Yeampierre, an internationally recognized Puerto Rican attorney and
climate-justice leader. The talk will be held March 20 at the University of
Rhode Island's Providence campus at 5:30 p.m.
• The Division of
Planning will host a workshop for local officials involved in planning and land
management to learn about new state law amendments and to advise local planning
boards and commissions. “Addressing Mandatory Planning Board Education on Sea
Level Rise/Flood Plain Education” is scheduled for March 2 at the
Department of Administration, conference room B, from 12:30-2:30 p.m.
• The Civic Alliance for a Cooler Rhode Island has
released a manual for Rhode Islanders who want to reduce their contribution to
climate change through simple acts. Livable Rhode Island contains
local artwork and ideas by local environmentalists. Ken Payne compares the
actions to eating a hamburger, a popular food that has a large carbon footprint
but isn't typically produced in the state.
“What we do is have
those emissions conveniently accrue elsewhere yet counted against other states
while we get the benefit of the hamburger,” he said. “So if we really want
to honor the Paris Agreement we have to take responsibility for our lifestyle
in Rhode Island. And this manual for a Livable Rhode Island addresses that
kind of thing.”
