Host and ecoRI News reporter Colleen Cronin sits down with Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management director Terry Gray to understand where the state is in terms of meeting its climate goals and what happens if it falls short.

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This transcript was edited for clarity and length.

Colleen Cronin 

Welcome to the Blab Lab, a podcast from the reporters of ecoRI News where we unpack the critical environmental issues facing southern New England. I’m reporter Colleen Cronin. I’m here with Blab Lab regular and Department of Environmental Management director Terry gray. On today’s episode, we’re going to take a look at Rhode Island’s climate goals, how far we’ve come, and how far we have to go until we hit our marks.

Hi Terry, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Terry Gray

Good morning. Colleen, thank you.

Colleen Cronin

So this is, I don’t even know what number episode this is for us, but today, this is actually your suggestion, something that you want to talk about. Just for some background before we get started, and probably something regular ecoRI readers and Blah Lab listeners already know about, is that about three years ago, the state passed a really ambitious Act on Climate law that set a goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, with some intermediate benchmarks in there along the way. So can you talk a little bit about what a net-zero world in Rhode Island really looks like?

Terry Gray

Yeah, that kind of cuts to the end of the story.

Colleen Cronin

We’ll do it in reverse, right? And really, what the Act on Climate does is it sets forth a series of mandated emission reductions and it sets 1990 as the baseline. And then we have goals that were in play in 2020, then future goals in 2030, 2040, and ultimately net zero in 2050.

Terry Gray

So when you look way forward to 2050, what does net zero really mean? It’s important to realize there’s a difference between zero emissions and net-zero emissions. And one of the things that we allow for is, yeah, there’s probably going to be some carbon emissions that are going to continue beyond 2050, but net zero means that we need to offset those. We need to mitigate those. And probably our biggest source of mitigating carbon emissions is land conservation. So when we look at land conservation, we’re really talking about preserving forest, preserving farmland, and just preserving open space. And by doing that, it’s a carbon sink, and that is a really valuable contribution that we need to keep in mind when we’re moving forward, when we’re looking at trying to minimize our emissions as much as possible, because we still have to drop a lot. We’re really talking about a state where everything is powered by electricity, and all the electricity is generated from renewable energy. So that could be solar, either ground-mounted solar facilities or rooftop solar. It could be land-based wind, or, more importantly, it could be offshore wind.

Colleen Cronin

That’s a little bit controversial these days. I just went to a forum in Newport, and people were really concerned about the Vineyard Wind blade that had fallen off into the ocean. As I grew up in New England, it feels like my whole life it’s been an interestingly controversial topic.

Terry Gray

You know, yeah, whenever we talk about renewable energy, the real key comes down to responsible siting, and really making sure that we don’t have any unintended impacts on the environment or on the people that make a living on the environment. So, for instance, our commercial fishing industry, there’s been a lot of controversy about the balance between building out offshore wind and maintaining our fishing industry as a whole, but even on the on the ground-mounted solar piece, the same type of discussion comes up, right? So there’s a lot of land clearing and loss of forest land, which you just said, is a big, important, you know, offset to carbon emissions. That’s a big, important offset, and it’s been sacrificed, really, to build out more renewable energy. So it’s very difficult to hit that balance, and we’re still working on that.

Colleen Cronin

Yeah, and aren’t you lucky that it’s all under your wheelhouse at DEM? Before we get to that lovely, mostly green, future, there’s a bunch of goals that you mentioned. The most immediate being a 45% reduction in carbon emissions per 1990 levels by 2030. How close are we to getting there?

Terry Gray

We’re on track. The other thing that the Act on Climate does is it’s got a very clear planning cycle. So that planning cycle started in 2022, where we had to look at everything that had been published in Rhode Island for greenhouse gas reduction since 2016, and kind of update our state greenhouse gas reduction plan. So we did that in 2022 and as part of that, we did some basically back of the envelope calculations to say, Are we on track for 2030 or not? And those back of the envelope calculations showed that we’re moving in the right direction, but that we weren’t going to exactly meet the 2030 deadline or the 2030 threshold. Now, does that mean that we’re in trouble? No, it’s kind of like saying, all right, I want to drive to Bangor, Maine, and you start out without using your GPS, and you just head north, so you know that you’re heading in the right direction, yeah. But as you get closer and closer to the deadline, you have to, you have to refine your directions a little bit more, and that’s what we’re planning to do in the 2025 climate action strategy, which is the next deliverable due under the Act on Climate. And that’s really going to lay out the path and the measures that we need to meet in order to meet our our 2030 goals.

Colleen Cronin

In broad strokes, could you maybe talk a little bit more about, in the six years that we have, how we’re going to get there, and maybe some of the places that we’re lagging that we need to beef up?

Terry Gray

I think the things that will be very specific in the 2025 plan are things like, how many EVs we need to have on the road in our fleet by 2030 in order to meet the deadlines, and then what plans we have to support getting that fleet mix. So that means we have to build out a lot of chargers. We have to talk about public transportation. Continue to transform RIPTA, look at school buses and look at some of the heavy-duty vehicles, the trucks.  

Colleen Cronin

I rode in an electric school bus last summer and it was a lot quieter and not very smelly compared to a regular school bus, right?

Terry Gray

And the other thing is, the kids aren’t breathing those emissions. And so not only is it good for the climate, but it’s good for public health. And that’s important. I would love to see the school districts transition over to EVs because they are cleaner, they are safer and they are healthier.

Terry Gray

So transportation is our biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state. So obviously, that’s where I always start, is, what can we do with transportation? And transitioning our fleet is important. But then we have to look at the power sector, and that’s where offshore wind and renewable energy really play a big part. So we have to continue to drive to really transition our electric generation away from natural gas and more toward renewables. And then the third piece is buildings. So when you add up residential buildings, commercial buildings and industrial buildings altogether, they’re very close to the amount of emissions that come out of the transportation sector. So it’s a big contributor. That’s the one that we’re farthest behind on. So there was a big legislative effort this year and lots of discussions, big debate about building decarbonization, and that discussion really needs to continue. The General Assembly passed the resolution that tasked the EC4 with taking a look at building decarbonization and coming up with a plan for that. So we’re starting to get going on that, and starting to work on that, and that’s going to be a big task. I think that’s new to us.

Colleen Cronin

So can you just kind of talk about what building decarbonization entails a little bit?

Terry Gray

Well, it starts with benchmarking, right? So it all kind of comes back to this measurement and inventory concept, and building owners or operators really need to understand what their emissions are. So a lot of that goes back to the heating systems, their cooling systems, their energy use, energy efficiency, all those things, and they need to come up with a number: by operating my building, I generate so many tons of CO2 a year. And then the next piece is to really kind of set some performance standards for those. And we could set a building standard for, say, a 25,000-square-foot building that we expect the emissions from to be some number, and I don’t know what the number is yet, and that’s the challenge. Then it goes back to the building owners, to really kind of push the envelope. Do energy efficiency, do weatherization, do power conversions, to meet those performance standards. So it’s sort of like, you know, even before you start actually tackling decarbonizing the buildings, you kind of have to know where the buildings are even at in terms of how much they’re outputting. And then you have to figure out what is a reasonable level to get people at, right? That’s a challenge. So we have numbers in our state inventory that really are macro-level numbers that say, all right, this is what we get out of the building sector. That’s all the buildings in the state, but we don’t have the data to drill down and say, these are the buildings that are really the biggest emitters, and they’re the ones we need to factor into our strategy, specifically. So that’s kind of where that benchmarking and measurement comes in. It gets really fine-grained, down to the individual emission source.

Colleen Cronin

I actually wanted to ask you a little bit about the greenhouse gas inventories. I’m curious about, you know, where that data comes from, and how you guys crunch those numbers.

Terry Gray

We have a guy on our staff that is really an expert at this, and he uses an EPA tool called the State Inventory Tool, right? So, what EPA does is, they look at a real macro scale, they look at a national model, and then they allocate the emissions to different states. So we can start by just looking at the allocation of emissions to Rhode Island, and that would be our baseline inventory. But what Joe’s been working on a lot is honing in on state-specific data. Now, when he does that, he also has to coordinate with the region. So we operate in a grid for the Northeast, and our economy is very closely linked to Massachusetts and Connecticut. So we have to look at what those states are doing, and make sure that we’re not double counting things, and that we’re measuring things in a consistent way. So there’s a lot of science to this, and it’s evolving pretty quickly. So one of the funny things that you’ll see is, when we just released the 2021 inventory, the methodology changed a tiny bit, and what that means is it also changed our 2020 inventory all the way back to our 1990 baseline, because we’re using a little bit different math, yeah, but we have to make sure that we’re comparing apples and apples. So, it seems funny that the 1990 numbers continue to change a little bit, but that’s just because the science is improving. Yeah, and it’s not like there’s someone who’s, you know, over every car and building with, like, a tent, trying to capture exactly how much CO2 is going into that. No, there’s a lot of estimation that really goes into it, but it’s getting to be a pretty solid tool. We’ve got 30 years of inventory. We’ve learned a lot. And I think it’s getting to be a pretty strong indicator of what’s going on there.

Colleen Cronin

So besides those inventories and the number-crunching that DEM is doing, what other roles do you guys play in sort of accomplishing these goals?

Terry Gray

Well, there’s a couple of different ways that we’ve tried to really work to accomplish the goals. One is, we’ve taken advantage of a lot of federal funding that’s been available through the inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. There was a lot of federal investment in climate work. So we, like all the other states, have really jumped on that. And what it’s done is it allows us to, first of all, really kind of focus on investing in EV charging infrastructure, but also to provide incentives for things like heat pumps and adoption and buying EVs. So we’ve worked on that, and it’s kind of an incentive-based program, but it’s also based on the fact that people are willing to do this in the first place, so it gives them a little nudge, but you still need to have that willingness. Now, as we get to some of the more difficult benchmarks that are going to come later, as we implement the Act on Climate, those incentives are probably going to have to shift over to regulatory mandates, and that hasn’t happened yet, with the exception of advanced clean cars.

Colleen Cronin

So I don’t know if you want to talk about that a little bit.

Terry Gray

Yeah. So advanced clean cars is a regulatory framework that DEM put in place last fall, and it’s based on a California model. And what it does is it regulates the manufacturers of vehicles. That’s the second phase of this thing. It requires that the manufacturers increase the amount of EVs that they provide to Rhode Island up to a maximum of 100% by 2035. It kicks in with the 2027 model year, and then it kind of increases linearly till 2035 when it’s 100%.

Colleen Cronin

And where are we at with that?

Terry Gray

Well, we just hit recently 10,000 EVs in Rhode Island, which is, it’s a pretty good milestone, and that’s 10,000 EVs on the road, registered to people. Yes, registered to people in Rhode Island, the advanced clean cars requirements haven’t kicked in yet. So, like I said, they’ll kick in with the ‘27 models and then increase from there. And what that means is you’re going to start to see more and more EVs on the dealer lots. And it doesn’t force people to give up their gasoline-powered cars, but what it does do is make sure that Rhode Island has an adequate inventory of EVs when people want to buy new cars.

Colleen Cronin

You know we’re talking about DEM’s role in all this, your role as the head of DEM, but you also wear another hat on the EC4. And I’m curious about how those two things either mesh together, or, you know, you have to play different roles?

Terry Gray

Well, that’s a fun question to answer. Colleen, it is really two different roles. So as chairman of the Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council, or the EC4, my job is to coordinate, right? So I bring together 13 agency heads that are named in the Act on Climate, plus a couple of other agency heads that we’ve invited because they’re doing work that’s critical to our climate agenda, and we meet every couple of months to really discuss what’s going on, to talk about strategy, to talk about investment. But we’re all agency heads, right? So, when I leave the EC4 role, I have to come back to DEM and then figure out what’s DEM’s part in actually meeting our goals. And probably the biggest two pieces that we have is one, we have this regulatory role. So I talked about the advanced clean cars, two regulations, we’re a regulatory agency. So we can mandate that people do things, and that’s going to be a role moving forward within our authorities. But the other piece that that we’re really focusing on is a lead by example role. And I think as the Department of Environmental Management, we really should be showing people how we can accomplish this stuff. So we’ve been really pushing to try and do that benchmarking on our buildings, also to look at how we can use the buildings within our inventory to host renewable energy facilities. And then the third thing is really transitioning our fleet. And we’ve been trying to explore how we can better use EVs in the operations so that we have.

Colleen Cronin

Well, I feel like Rhode Island’s a small state, so, you know, you can get pretty far on that one charge. Probably do the whole state.

Terry Gray

Maybe, I’m not sure actually, about that. The facility that we operate that’s closest to being carbon neutral is on Prudence Island. We run the the Narragansett Bay National Estuary Research Reserve on Prudence Island. And that’s a mouthful, right? But that facility  has solar panels. It’s adding more solar panels. It’s adding battery backup. And they have a Ford Lightning, an EV Ford pickup truck that, for 300 miles on a charge, you can drive for six months on Prudence Island, right? So, that’s pretty neat. And then the other thing they’re really kind of looking at is transitioning all the landscaping equipment to battery-powered landscaping equipment as well. So I think within the next year, that’s going to be a net-zero facility. And I want to use that as an example to try and drive some of our other parks and management area operations to the same goals.

Colleen Cronin

So I think something that I’m hearing and what you’re talking about is that there is a lot of funding out there for what seems like a lot of, you know, pretty big capital projects, in a lot of ways, to build certain things or start incentive programs. Maybe that’s not really a capital project, but, you know, get some of these more greener initiatives out there. But is there also, you know, money out there to beef up, like, a regulatory arm for DEM or, you know, get more rangers and parks to preserve the land that you’d hopefully be conserving? I think oftentimes, especially when federal funding is involved, there’s a lot of foundational funding there. But then there’s not always the money to sustain things.

Terry Gray

Well, there’s a few things to unpack there. One is, in terms of operational money for climate work, one of the things that the governor and the General Assembly did a couple years ago was provide the first level of funding to the EC4. So we do have a small budget now, and it’s about $1.5 million a year. And we’ve been working with the agencies to develop spending plans for that. That budget, the spending plan, will probably be put out as a draft for public comment later in August. It’s not a lot of money to do a lot of work, but it is money to test different concepts. And if we can do a proof of concept on a certain approach, then we can seek other funding, either federal or state, to kind of really play that out at a bigger level. In terms of land conservation, this goes back to a discussion we had a couple of episodes ago about the green bond, and when there was a lot of very active discussion about the value of land conservation for the quality of life on Rhode Island, it really didn’t talk about the value of land conservation to meet our climate goals. But they’re the same thing, you know, and in a lot of ways, by putting land conservation back into the green bond and putting that in front of the voters, it’s going to help us achieve our climate goals as well.

Colleen Cronin

Yeah. I think people don’t realize how there’s certainly a lot of land that could still be conserved, but there is already so much of Rhode Island that’s conserved. I was on the west side of the state, and I did a hike with Andy Grover recently, and we hiked, like, 18 miles. We had to motor across some roads, you know. But, we spent pretty much all the time in state forests, otherwise. And that’s pretty crazy for such a small state. And recently, an international group reached out to us from the United Kingdom and asked us whether or not we would be willing to join on a worldwide effort to meet 30% concern by 2030 and the reason why they reached out to us is we’re pretty close.

Terry Gray

Yeah, we are pretty close. So when you look at state conserved lands, locally conserved lands, and then lands conserved by some of our environmental organizations, like The Nature Conservancy or Audubon, we’re pretty close to that level.

Colleen Cronin

Do you have a number?

Terry Gray

I thought it was between 26% and 28%, so pretty close. And the the other challenge is, OK, you can conserve land, but you got to effectively manage that land too.

Colleen Cronin

Is there a percentage of conserved land that you guys would want to get to to try to neutralize things?

Terry Gray

We don’t have that number yet. And I think right now, we’ve just been looking at the value, the natural resource value, of the lands that we’re considering for conservation. So mostly it’s habitat value, it’s watershed protection value, those type of things that go into it, and obviously farmland has a different kind of map to it, but we’re looking at the individual value of properties. We haven’t set like a macro goal either in climate or in our land conservation efforts.

Colleen Cronin

So, we talked about how we’re going to get to those goals that we have. The most immediate being the 2030 goal. What happens if we don’t reach those deadlines?

Terry Gray

Well, the Act on Climate has a hammer in it, and the hammer is this option for a citizen suit, so any party is empowered after 2026 to sue the state if they don’t feel we’re doing enough to meet our climate goals. So that’s something that’s clearly back of mind for all of us, that we don’t want to get sued. We want to meet the goals. So we’re looking at that and that’s kind of hanging over us as we’re doing all this planning and we’re doing this work. It also creates an urgency, and it creates a seriousness that this isn’t just like a fluffy goal that was thrown out there. There are ramifications of not meeting it.

Colleen Cronin

Yeah, I’ve been spending a lot of time reading through the Rhode Island General Laws recently, and, you know, there’s a lot of things, cool, important things, that the state has passed over time, but sometimes there’s not really a mechanism to enforce those laws. I’ve talked to a lot of advocates who feel like, they don’t want to have to do anything about that, you know, lever that’s there, but they’re grateful that is there.

Terry Gray

Yeah, I think that lever is important, and I think the resource piece is important too. So when you’re really kind of looking at this, it’s pretty critical that we have the resources to follow through. And that’s a discussion that that’s been going on now for a couple of years. The good news is the EC4 has got some money. The bad news is it’s probably not enough money, especially if the federal dollars go away, to really kind of sustain what we need to do.

Colleen Cronin

Would you say it’s an optimistic outlook for you?

Terry Gray

It’s cautiously optimistic. I think we can meet the 45% reduction deadline or mandate for 2030. I think it’s going to be tough, and I think we’re going to have to make smart use of the federal funds that have been provided to the state. When we model, sometimes we look at kind of an effective range versus a not effective range. So if, for instance, we don’t use the federal money that’s been provided to the state effectively, it’s not going to be a very efficient path forward. But if we do use it effectively, there’s a lot of money there, and I think we can use it to really meet our goals. But that’s the challenge, right? And that’s what everybody’s working on right now, is, is the most effective implementation plans for things like the national EV infrastructure money, the heat pump incentive program, all of those things are kind of important to make sure we do it in a way that really maximizes the benefits that come out of it.

Colleen Cronin

For folks who maybe want to be a part of making Rhode Island accomplish its climate goals, are there things that you suggest they do, or resources that they look at?

Terry Gray

Yeah, I think the best opportunity to participate is coming up fast, which is the 2025 climate action strategy. So we have gone out for proposals from environmental consultants to help us really build this plan, and we’re in the final process of selecting that consultant. We’re hoping to have that done in time for the September EC4 meeting. As soon as that happens, there’s going to start to be a public engagement process, and we’ll start talking about all these sectors, you know, transportation, buildings, the power sector, and really trying to figure out what people’s ideas are and how we can incorporate those into into our path forward. That’s going to be a very active discussion for the next year, and then we have to come up with a plan about a year from now. So the end of 2025 is really going to show how we’re going to meet that 2030 mandate.

Colleen Cronin

Thanks so much, Terry, for coming on the show. We appreciate it. And thank you so much to our listeners for following along. If you have any questions you’d like to ask Terry, or any ideas for podcasts in the future, email me at [email protected]. We want to thank Vanessa Carlton for letting us use her song “Willows” for our theme song, which you hear at the beginning and end of every episode. Thanks also to Jo, our editor and publisher, for editing and mixing the episode and fixing all of my editing mistakes. For more Rhody environmental news, you can visit us at ecori.org.