As floods and erosion continue to threaten our state, R.I. leaders delay action on climate bills - The Boston Globe

As floods and erosion continue to threaten R.I., our leaders delay action on climate bills

With climate change gaining momentum every year, Rhode Island’s political leaders recognized the urgent need for action and courageously decided to … study the issue some more.

Meanwhile, citizens watch helplessly as our beaches erode, basements flood, roads turn into rivers, and our insurance rates skyrocket in the wake of a quickening parade of natural disasters.

Three years ago, the state legislature took bold action by passing the Act on Climate, which established deadlines for a dramatic reduction in carbon emissions. However, the bill is mostly aspirational and depends on subsequent legislation to provide the concrete steps needed to meet those goals.

Yet concrete action has been repeatedly delayed. This year alone, at least a dozen climate bills died silent deaths in the state legislature. Once again, our leaders have failed to take meaningful action as the water rises from our knees, to our waists, and to our noses.

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Our mothership, Planet Earth, is taking on water at an alarming rate, yet there is no sense of urgency from the governor or our legislative leadership.

More than a dozen climate bills were filed this year and not a single substantial measure designed to control climate change was enacted. The official reason was that the bills weren’t ready: Why not? Why isn’t top leadership making sure the climate crisis is addressed efficiently?

This year’s top environmental bill is a case in point. The Building Decarbonization Act was the top priority for the Environmental Council of Rhode Island, a coalition of more than 60 environmental organizations in the state. The bill was designed to reduce carbon emissions from the building sector, which accounts for more than a third of all emissions in the state. It set a manageable timetable and would have been a significant step toward Rhode Island’s clean-energy goal.

The bill passed in the state Senate by an overwhelming vote of 31 to 6, and had been poised to pass in the House when the governor and several organizations stepped in at the 11th hour questioning whether there was sufficient agency staff to carry out the mandates. Are we to believe that after three years and numerous revisions, no one thought to ask whether there was anyone available to implement this legislation? It seems implausible this is the real reason for the bill’s demise.

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We may never know the real reason. But what’s clear after three years of inaction on the Act on Climate is that the climate strategy in Rhode Island is to keep kicking the can down the road until — whoops — the darn thing just went over a cliff.

Reducing carbon emissions will require political courage because it involves the transition from fossil fuels to electricity, which can be produced by clean energy such as solar and wind power.

The fossil fuel industry doesn’t like this one bit since it will cut into their profits. They are rich, powerful, and major political donors.

We don’t know who is responsible for the death of this year’s crop of environmental bills because nothing is ever transparent in the Rhode Island legislature. Opponents don’t testify against bills in public, they strangle them quietly behind closed doors. Votes aren’t called until passage of a bill is guaranteed, which means the votes are meaningless, since all discussion has taken place in private.

What we do know is that on the very last day of the legislative session, the House and Senate voted to approve a gutted version of the bill. After three years of work, the legislature approved ... drum roll please ... a commission to study the issue some more.

The climate crisis is like an avalanche in that it starts slow — just a little snow rolling down the hill — then suddenly builds to a force so powerful it buries everything in its wake.

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Climate change can feel so overwhelming that many people want to throw up their hands. But there are manageable steps we can take to address this menace if we have the political will to take action. That courage was demonstrated by the bill’s sponsors and by the many legislators who backed it. Unfortunately, the leadership in Rhode Island demonstrated that — this year at least — they did not have the political will to get the job done.

Let’s hope they develop a sense of urgency in the coming year because when it comes to climate change, later is too late.

Bill Ibelle is a freelance writer based in Providence, R.I.