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Rhode Island Responds to Global Warming: Priority Policies for Reducing Rhode Island’s Contribution to Global Warming 8/25/2004 Global_Warming_2004.pdf

Executive Summary

As the new home of RIPIRG's environmental work, Environment Rhode Island can be contacted regarding this report.

Recognizing the threats to the regional economy and the environment presented by climate
change and the benefits of early action, the governors of the six New England states and their peers in eastern Canada signed a landmark agreement in 2001 to reduce the region’s contribution to global warming.

Rhode Island could significantly reduce its emissions of global warming gases over the next several decades by taking steps now to make the state more energy efficient and reduce the use of fossil fuels.

The six strategies described in this report could make an important contribution toward helping Rhode Island meet the goals laid out by the regional leaders. These six high-yield policies – most of which have been implemented in other states – can reduce Rhode Island’s energy consumption (especially of costly fossil fuels), help the state achieve its short- and mid-term global warming
emission reduction goals, and help Rhode Island position itself to achieve the long-term goal of reducing the state’s emissions of global warming gases to levels that do not have a harmful effect on the climate – a goal that will require emission reductions of 75 to 85 per-cent below current levels.

Global warming, the result of human activity changing the earth’s climate, is a major threat to Rhode Island’s future.

• Since the beginning of the Industrial Age, atmo-spheric concentrations of carbon dioxide – the leading global warming gas – have increased by 31 percent, a rate of increase unprecedented in the last 20,000 years.

• Average temperatures in Rhode Island have already increased by about 2.3° F since 1895, and the average surface water temperature in Narragansett Bay has risen 3° F since 1950. recipitation patterns have changed also.

• Average temperatures in Rhode Island are projected to increase by between 1° F and 10° F over the next century, potentially making Rhode Island’s climate more like that of Atlanta, Georgia.

• The results of these changes could include sea levels as much as 30 inches higher, endangering people, roads, buildings and other infrastructure along Rhode Island’s 440 miles of coastline. Other impacts could include degraded air quality, increased heat-related deaths, and changes in fish populations.

Emissions of carbon dioxide – the leading global warming gas – are on the rise in Rhode Island.

• Between 1990 and 2000, Rhode Island’s direct, non-electric emissions of carbon dioxide from energy use (such as burning fossil fuels to power cars or heat buildings) increased by approximately nine percent. These emissions of carbon dioxide could increase by as much as 20 percent over the next two decades, with much of the increase taking place in the trans-portation
sector.

• Rhode Island’s consumption of electricity, which is generated throughout New England, rose 14 percent from 1990 to 2000. From 2000 to 2020, New England- wide emissions of carbon dioxide from electricity generation can be expected to increase by about 35 percent if the region’s nuclear reactors close at the expiration of their operating licenses to protect the environment and public health and safety.

To begin to reduce its global warming emissions, Rhode Island should immediately adopt six high-impact policies.

1. Put more hybrid-electric cars (and eventually zero-emitting cars) on Rhode Island’s roads over the next two decades by finalizing and implementing the state’s clean cars requirement.

2. Adopt California’s forthcoming limits on vehicle carbon dioxide emissions.

3. Require automobile insurers to offer pay-as-you-drive automobile insurance, in which insurance rates are calculated by the mile, rewarding those who drive less, while potentially reducing accidents.

4. Implement a strong renewable portfolio standard to require more of Rhode Island’s electricity to come from new, clean, renewable sources.

5. Adopt appliance efficiency standards for a series of residential and commercial products.

6. Reduce energy use by increasing funding for energy efficiency programs supported by electricity ratepayers and creating similar energy efficiency pro-grams for natural gas, heating oil and other heating fuels such as propane.

Implementing these six strategies will reduce Rhode Island’s direct, in-state (non-electric) releases of carbon dioxide by nearly 300 thousand MTCE in 2020, slightly less than one-third of the 920 thousand MTCE reductions Rhode Island needs to achieve to meet the regional
goal for 2020. Futhermore, these six strategies will reduce regional electric sector emissions. New England’s emissions from electricty generation would be reduced by 860 thousand MTCE compared to projected levels.

These strategies would also produce other significant benefits, including reduced emissions of other air pollutants, decreased dependence on imported fuel, more stable and reliable energy supplies, and significant cost savings due to energy efficiency.

Rhode Island should seize the opportunity to reduce its emissions of global warming gases.

• Rhode Island should move forward with implementation of all the recommendations contained in the Rhode Island Greenhouse Gas Action Plan, and build upon the stakeholder process by continuing dialogue on such difficult issues as reducing vehicle-miles traveled, limiting suburban sprawl, and encouraging the development of non-fossil, non-nuclear sources of energy.

• Rhode Island should continue to participate in regional efforts to reduce global warming gas emissions, particularly the efforts of the Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers and the northeastern states’ negotiations to establish a regional, power-sector carbon cap.

• Rhode Island should commit to achieving the governors’ and premiers’ long-term global warming emission reduction goal by 2050 and begin to plan for making the technological and other changes that will be needed to achieve that goal.

• Due to the public health dangers of nuclear power, Rhode Island should reduce its global warming emissions without the use of nuclear energy, either in the state or the region.