Rhode Island is now farther from its climate law targets than it was the day the law passed. State data released April 1 shows greenhouse gas emissions jumped 8.2 percent from 2017 to 2018, hitting 12.7 million metric tons of CO₂. That single-year leap is the largest since the state started consistent tracking in 1990. The 2018 total sits 1.8 percent above the 1990 baseline.
The 2021 Act on Climate requires a 10 percent cut below 1990 levels by 2020. That deadline is already gone. The state missed it. And the new numbers make the next targets look steep. By 2030, the law demands a 45 percent reduction from 1990 levels. By 2050, net-zero.
Those targets use a rolling three-year average, which gives some cushion. But the direction is wrong. Emissions rose, not fell.
Acting DEM Director Terry Gray said the increase did not surprise 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.”
The report blames two things: more gasoline and more electricity. A stronger economy pushed gasoline sales up. A hot summer and a cold winter drove heating and air-conditioning demand. Natural gas plants met that load. Almost every sector rose — residential, commercial, industrial fuel use, even waste-sector methane.
The 2017 total was 11.74 million metric tons. One year later, 12.7 million. That is roughly a million extra tons of CO₂ in a single year from a small state.
Rhode Island stands out in New England. Connecticut’s emissions grew 2.7 percent over the same period. Massachusetts saw just 0.68 percent growth. Rhode Island’s 8.2 percent jump makes it an outlier.
What is at stake is not symbolic. The Act on Climate is law. If the state cannot hit the 2020 target — a target already in the past — the 2030 target requires cutting nearly half the state’s emissions in eight years. That means every sector has to move. Transportation and electricity, which drove the 2018 surge, would need to reverse hard.
Gray’s point is blunt: in 2017 and 2018, nothing forced change. No binding targets existed yet. No price on carbon. No real incentive to drive less. The economy grew, and emissions grew with it.
The data covers 2017 and 2018. That is before the 2021 law passed. So the numbers do not reflect any policy from the Act on Climate. They show what happens without it. The question now is whether the law can change the trajectory fast enough.
Rhode Island is small. Its total emissions are a fraction of larger states. But the law binds it. Missing the 2020 target is already a fact. Missing the 2030 target would mean the law’s core structure fails. The 2050 net-zero goal would become a fantasy.
Gray did not offer a plan in his comments. He stated the reality. The curve did not bend. The next report, covering 2019 and possibly 2020, will show whether anything changed after the law took effect. That report is not out yet.
For now, the state has a clear number: 12.7 million metric tons in 2018. And a clear gap: the 2020 target was 10 percent below 1990 levels. The state is above 1990 levels. The gap is real, and it is growing.
