A recent report on transforming Rhode Island’s heating sector offers options to reach our climate goals while ensuring we stay warm during the winter. One of the first studies of its kind, the report is a valuable resource for policymakers and can help the state transition to a clean energy future.
Getting serious about climate change means getting serious about our gas use. It means all of us working together to build a clean energy future that doesn’t require the expensive and polluting buildout of more fracked gas. We don’t need it. And we can’t afford it.
Exactly a year ago, as families prepared for a brutal winter night, National Grid cut gas service to more than 7,000 customers on Aquidneck Island. With another New England winter upon us, it’s also worth noting that Rhode Island could avoid these types of emergencies entirely by switching from fossil fuels like gas to clean alternatives powered by solar and wind.
“The reality of the climate crisis demands that we end our reliance on dirty fossil fuels,” said CLF Senior Attorney Jerry Elmer. “This commitment to 100% renewable electricity is a major step towards reaching that goal. The Governor must now make good on her promise to support a law that goes beyond mere talk and makes Rhode Island’s climate goals mandatory, including slashing emissions beyond the electric sector.”
Here in New England, we rely too much on fracked gas to heat and power our homes and businesses. If we want to avoid a climate catastrophe, we need to end fossil fuel use by 2050.
South Portland, Maine, and Portland, Oregon, are just two of the most recent cities to take a stand against Big Oil and new fossil fuel infrastructure.
Last week, the highest court in Massachusetts unanimously ruled that power generators must drastically cut their carbon pollution year after year through 2050. In doing so, the high court recognized the incontrovertible fact that carbon pollution damages our climate, threatens our health, and hurts our economy. It was the second time the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial… Continue reading Massachusetts Stands with CLF Against Climate-Damaging Pollution
The Final Hearing to decide if Invenergy will be allowed to build its fracked gas and diesel oil power plant in Rhode Island is underway. By law, the most important questions to be answered by the state’s Energy Facility Siting Board: Is this plant really needed (it’s not) and would the plant cause unacceptable environmental harms (it would).
“Climate change demands that we set aside harmful, unnecessary fossil fuel pipelines, and today’s decision is a step in the wrong direction,” said Sandra Levine, Senior Attorney at Conservation Law Foundation. “Without a fresh look at what has become an entirely new project, the troubled Vermont Gas pipeline will saddle Vermonters with higher costs and more pollution for decades.”
Invenergy’s proposed power plant barely avoided a near-fatal blow to its proposed dirty energy power plant in January, though it still has big hurdles to overcome before it can push shovels in the ground.
