Newport This Week

Climate Caucus Discusses Most Pressing Priorities



The Aquidneck Climate Caucus, a political advocacy group created by state Rep. Terri Cortvriend and state Rep. Lauren Carson, held a virtual discussion on environmen­tal issues on Jan. 9, focusing on the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference attended by U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and state Rep. Dawn Euer in Glasgow, Scotland.

The Glasgow event brought to­gether over 120 world leaders and more than 40,000 participants, and ended with the signing of the Glasgow Climate Pact, the first large-scale agreement among leading nations since the Paris Agreement in 2016. The agree­ment is nonbinding, leading to many of the same criticisms aimed at the Paris Agreement, neither of which included legally binding en­forcement mechanisms for those who fail to abide by its tenets.

The Jan. 9 virtual gathering in­cluded a number of local and state representatives from Newport, Middletown, and Portsmouth, along with private citizens who submitted questions to panelists. The caucus was created in 2020 and has been meeting virtually due to the ongoing pandemic.

Carson opened the meeting by reiterating the caucus’ mission to organize on the local level as Rhode Island municipalities, espe­cially coastal districts, prepare for anticipated sea-level rise and relat­ed environmental impacts.

“We want to build a voice from Aquidneck Island … to build some kind of unity around climate relat­ed issues,” she said.

Whitehouse criticized what he called the corporate practice of “greenwashing” by the financial services industry that represents an economic sector that has his­torically funded many carbon releasing operations around the globe. He also singled out nation­al and regional trade associations, who often lobby against progres­sive climate legislation. He said the pushback against these organiza­tional practices was a major theme in Glasgow.

“That [message] came through quite well,” he said. “These are the same guys who are warning us about carbon bubbles and eco­nomic meltdowns … The American Petroleum Institute is actually bet­ter than most trade associations, which is peculiar. But that’s the way it is.”

Euer attended the Glasgow con­ference as part of a cohort of state representatives across the country who are crafting climate legisla­tion in their home states. She said the organized opposition from the private sector is felt by state lead­ers from Rhode Island to California.

“We see the same things on the state level, with a lot of corpora­tions and companies who have very big climate statements within their corporate mission but are the first ones to come in opposition at the Statehouse with their lob­byists,” she said. “There has been this push around private action and what individuals can do. This isn’t something we are going to fix with individual action. We need governments at all levels engaged in resolving this problem. It’s such a crisis and it’s not going to be solved with a one-off focus here and there. It needs to be a concert­ed, ongoing effort.”

Euer also spoke of legislative priorities in the 2022 Rhode Island General Assembly session, noting the Act on Climate bill passed in April 2021 and signed by Gov. Dan McKee in a Newport ceremony. The landmark bill seeks to reach net-zero emissions from transpor­tation and infrastructure utilities, such as electricity and natural gas, by 2050. The bill laid out reduction goals that began with a 10 percent cut in these emissions in its first year of implementation.

However, Euer said that more ambitious legislation is needed on a shorter timeline than the Act on Climate provides, such as codifying in law the goals of the executive order signed by former Gov. Gina Raimondo that seeks 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. A state report on Rhode Is­land greenhouse gas emissions is due to be released by the end of the year. But more direct action is required, she said, particularly in the transportation sector.

“[We need to] holistically look at both our public transit [and] how our roads and bridges are built,” she said. “We don’t have a shortage of reports. We need to start imple­menting [their recommendations].”

Euer said that though rising tem­peratures are a global problem, elected officials must also target their efforts to areas historically underrepresented that often bear the brunt of negative health out­comes.

“Often, the communities who can least afford to be dealing with the burdens of climate change and its impacts are often those com­munities on the front line that are dealing with it more heavily,” she said.

At the closing of the caucus, panelists were asked how public and private sector action can be integrated on the federal, state and local level. Whitehouse ended his remarks by saying that as the en­vironmental impacts from carbon emissions increase, the markets could readjust out of economic ne­cessity. But elected leaders, espe­cially those who receive campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry, must also realign their priorities by increasing the costs for polluters through legislation, such as carbon pricing or targeted fees.

“To make sure that when people are polluting in a way that damag­es the climate, they pay the price for what they are doing,” he said. “That’s really simple economics. That’s conservative economics.”

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