Greenhouse gas emissions rose 9% in post-pandemic rebound, DEM report says

Passengers head to gates at Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport in early June 2024. An increase in post-pandemic air travel in and out of the Warwick airport is a factor in a nearly 9% rise in greenhouse gas emissions in 2021. (Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)

After a pandemic hiatus that forced travel to a standstill in 2020 , Rhode Islanders returned to the roads and the skies in 2021, ramping up the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management published Monday.

The 2021 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory shows the state produced 9.82 net million metric tons of carbon dioxide that year, up 8.9% from 2020. Two big factors: increased travel, particularly the resumption of flights in and out of Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport, and higher residential heating emissions due to a slightly colder and snowier winter, according to the report.

“This inventory should serve as a call to action that we must continue to work collaboratively to advance progress towards 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 on Monday.

The rise in greenhouse gas emissions coinciding with the reopening of the post-COVID economy came as no surprise to state officials, reflecting similar trends regionally and nationwide. Terry Gray, DEM director, also noted that the 2021 data does not account for steps taken since the state passed a landmark decarbonization law, Act on Climate, that same year.

“DEM is pleased to release the 2021 inventory of GHG emissions in Rhode Island which reflects the year when the Act on Climate was signed into law,” Gray said in a statement. “Since 2021, state agencies throughout the McKee administration have applied for hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to help lower Rhode Island’s GHG emissions. The programs funded by the grants already received are aggressively being implemented and the benefits of those investments will be seen in future inventories.”

But advocates remained worried that the state needs to ramp up the pace, and pressure, to meet its aggressive decarbonization targets.

“Compared to 1990, we are still going in the right direction, but now we need to take that right direction and accelerate it,” Patrick Crowley, a labor organizer and co-chair of Climate Jobs Rhode Island, said in an interview on Monday.

The law calls for incrementally decreasing Rhode Island’s greenhouse gas emissions over the next 27 years, with the requirement of hitting net zero by 2050, as measured against a baseline emissions amount from 1990. By 2030, the law requires the state to reduce emissions by 45% compared to the 1990 baseline.

Emissions measured in 2021 were 14.5% below the 1990 baseline — more than 35% above the amount the state needs to meet by the end of the decade.

The law also charges a consortium of state agencies, the Executive Climate Coordinating Council, with laying out the map for how Rhode Island meets its decarbonization mandates. Projections included in the council’s prior, 2022 update suggest the state is poised to fall short of that 2030 milestone, though the report emphasized that the model is “simple” and “preliminary.”

That makes the group’s next report, due in 2025, all the more crucial in Crowley’s eyes.

“That blueprint needs to be very explicit in how we get from good progress to meaningful action,” he said.

Among the biggest question marks still hanging over the state’s decarbonization plans: how to make its aging, behemoth buildings and homes more heat-efficient. Building heating is the second-highest source of state emissions with an 11% jump in residential heating from 2020 to 2021, according to the report.

Transportation, which comprised more than 37% of 2021 emissions, was up 5.4% year-over-year, with the largest annual rise due to resumed aviation activity.

Electricity consumption grew 12.5% year over year, comprising 18.5% of 2021 emissions.

While Rhode Island has made strides toward addressing the two other biggest emissions culprits  — transportation and electricity consumption — little has been done to assess, or reduce, building heat emissions, said Amanda Barker, co-vice president of policy for the Environmental Council of Rhode Island.

Decarbonization bill hangs in the balance

The Environmental Council named as a top priority from the 2024 legislative session a proposal that would have required new buildings to be “electric ready” — meaning wired to eventually switch to heat pumps — while taking stock of the energy use from existing residential, industrial and commercial buildings over a certain size.

Despite strong support from environmental advocates and the Senate, which approved the bill in a 31-6 vote on June 12 , the House got cold feet amid last-minute opposition from industry representatives and the state agencies tasked with conducting the assessment.

The watered-down resolution ultimately approved on June 14 eliminates any decarbonization requirements on new construction and asks for state agencies to conduct a less comprehensive inventory of existing building energy use.

“We were disappointed,” Barker said Monday. “In order to reduce emissions, it is imperative we have a building performance standard to require large buildings to reduce emissions.”

Crowley pointed to the legislation as an example of why the state needs to build its renewable energy workforce. Lack of staff at the government agencies that would be required to assess and periodically update building energy use was one reason why the original bill failed, he said.

“Our workforce just needs a lot more bodies to eliminate some of these structural barriers,” Crowley said.

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.

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