Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee asked the state’s climate council on Thursday to step up the pace of its work to meet the objectives of the Act on Climate, which he signed in April.

The Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council (EC4) will move from quarterly to monthly meetings, and McKee said during the council’s meeting that he is working to ensure that the state’s upcoming budget meets the expanding needs of the council.

The Act on Climate directs EC4 to update the state’s greenhouse gas reduction plan by the end of 2022.

To inform that work, the council will schedule a series of dedicated virtual public listening sessions and other focus group discussions with constituents, EC4 Vice Chair and State Energy Commissioner Nicholas Ucci said during the meeting.

The GHG reduction plan will be “foundational” to the development of a strategic plan for the state that is due by the end of 2025, according to Ucci. EC4 will review other states’ climate plans and connect with Rhode Island’s climate organizations to inform the initial strategic plan framework.

“The mandate for that 2025 plan is extensive,” Ucci said, adding that it’s important for the council to build a public dashboard in the near term for metrics to measure and verify success of the plan.

The dashboard, he said, is more than just a place to calculate emissions.

“We need better insight into what matters most to our people, into our economy, and to work collaboratively to determine how best to measure progress,” he said.

The council also is immediately taking up recommendations from its Advisory Board on climate justice priorities to identify how those priorities will support the strategic plan. The board worked for several months to develop the priorities for the council.

“We cannot be successful in our climate change efforts unless we more fully understand and begin to address inequities facing those in frontline communities,” Ucci said.

Among the climate justice priorities that Advisory Board Chair Sheila Dormody presented during the meeting was a call to build out a staff that can work with frontline communities as the state builds its strategic plan.

“We recognize that we, an all-white board, are not the right people to be telling the state what climate justice priorities should be,” she said.

The board also recommended, among other things, that EC4 build a definitive map of environmental justice areas in the state and define the values and principles that will guide climate justice work.

TCI-P Status

During the council meeting, McKee reiterated his support for the Transportation and Climate Initiative Program (TCI-P), saying that without a “strong commitment” to reducing transportation sector emissions, “the state will have difficulty meeting the reduction mandates that are required in the Act on Climate.”

The Transportation Emissions and Mobile Community Act (S0872A/H6310), which would have codified TCI-P, passed the Senate in June but didn’t make it through the House of Representatives before the end of the legislative session.

Newly appointed EC4 Chair Terry Gray, who is acting director of the Department of Environmental Management, said TCI-P “is still very much active and alive.”

Robust discussions about the program are ongoing with state advocates and legislators, as well as regional stakeholders, he said. TCI-P, he added, is the “only viable and complete program” to address the state’s transportation sector emissions.

“We believe that the program has been developed and built and modeled so that the costs and benefits are well balanced and that there’s a huge opportunity here to make some investments in transportation that will position Rhode Island as a leader in clean transportation,” he said.