Rhode Island’s greenhouse-gas output jumped 8.2 percent between 2017 and 2018, state analysts reported on 1 April 2022, pushing total emissions 1.8 percent above the 1990 baseline and erasing recent progress toward the 10-percent-by-2020 reduction required under the 2021 Act on Climate. The Department of Environmental Management (DEM) blamed higher gasoline use and increased electricity demand for the rise, which left the state 11.74 million metric tons of CO₂ in 2017 and 12.7 million in 2018.
Almost every major sector moved upward, but cars, trucks, and the electricity that keeps them running accounted for the bulk of the gain. Gasoline sales rose in tandem with a strengthening regional economy, while a hot summer and cold winter prompted more air-conditioning and heating demand that natural-gas fired plants met.
Residential, commercial, and industrial fuel use also ticked higher, as did waste-sector methane. DEM air-quality specialists who prepared the annual inventory noted that the single-year leap is the largest since the state began consistent tracking in 1990. By comparison, Connecticut’s emissions grew 2.7 percent over the same span and Massachusetts just 0.68 percent, leaving Rhode Island an outlier in New England.
Acting Director Terry Gray said the figures did not shock him. “Nothing significant was happening in 2017 or 2018 to bend the curve,” he told reporters.
“We had no binding targets, no price signal, and no real incentive to leave the car at home.”
2020 target now out of reach
The Act on Climate, signed by Governor Dan McKee in April 2021, wrote the 10-percent cut into law and added interim checkpoints: 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and net-zero by 2050. Because the statute uses a rolling three-year average, 2018’s spike alone is enough to make the 2020 goal mathematically impossible even if 2019 data, still being compiled, were to show a steep drop. Gray conceded that 2019 is likely to reveal another increase before pandemic-related shutdowns suppressed travel in 2020.
“We expect the trend to turn, but not soon enough to rescue the 2020 mandate,” he said. The law allows the state to bank over-performance in later years to cover early shortfalls, so officials are now focused on 2030.
Administration Points to Wind and Heat Pumps
McKee called the inventory “a wake-up call” and repeated his pledge to make Rhode Island “the offshore-wind capital of the United States.” His office is preparing a solicitation for an additional 600 megawatts of ocean-based generation, enough to power roughly 340,000 homes and displace about 1.2 million metric tons of CO₂ annually once the turbines spin later this decade.
The governor also wants to spend $37 million in federal American Rescue Plan funds on high-efficiency electric heat pumps, a move the administration estimates could cut residential heating emissions 15 percent if fully deployed. A separate rebate program will help drivers switch to battery-electric cars, though officials have not set funding levels or launch dates.
“Rhode Island is already paying the price of climate change through higher temperatures and more intense storms,” McKee said in a written statement. “These investments are the first step toward catching up with the commitments we have made.”
Lawmakers Weigh Stronger Tools
Environmental groups say technology incentives alone will not close the gap. The Green Energy Consumers Alliance is pressing the General Assembly to adopt California’s low-carbon fuel standard, a rule that gradually lowers the carbon intensity of transportation fuels and has helped cut tailpipe emissions 7 percent in California since 2011. Senator Meghan Kallman, who sponsored the Act on Climate, is preparing a bill that would require all new passenger vehicle sales to be zero-emission by 2035, matching Massachusetts and New York.
“We gave ourselves legally binding goals because we meant to hit them,” Kallman said. “The inventory proves we need enforceable sector-by-sector limits, not just voluntary programs.” The business lobby warns against mandates it calls “economically reckless.” The Rhode Island Manufacturers Coalition argues that electricity prices, already among the highest in the continental United States, could climb further if the regional grid is forced to add costly offshore transmission before supply chains mature.
Gray counters that delay carries its own price. “Every year we punt, the reductions we need get steeper and more expensive,” he said.
Next Inventory Due This Summer
DEM expects to publish 2019 data by July. Analysts will then fold in provisional 2020 numbers to calculate the first official three-year average under the Act on Climate. If, as projected, that average exceeds the 1990 baseline by more than 10 percent, the law requires the governor to submit a corrective action plan within six months.
The department has already begun modeling pathways that could achieve the 2030 target of 45 percent below 1990 levels. Preliminary results show the state would need to cut another 4.8 million metric tons, roughly the combined current output of transportation and residential heating, while accommodating economic growth.
Gray calls the task “daunting but doable” if offshore wind, heat pumps, and electric vehicles scale on schedule. “The new data is a call to action for Rhode Island to do better, to fight climate change,” he said. Whether policymakers, businesses, and motorists answer that call will determine whether the 2022 inventory becomes a historic blip or the new normal.
