Last Monday, Rhode Island’s Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council, or EC4, announced $1.5 million in grants to fund climate change-fighting projects and initiatives proposed by various state agencies and partners.
The 12 grants will fund initiatives ranging from projects that monitor energy efficiency at schools to paid internships for University of Rhode Island students studying environmental education.
EC4, which first received funding in 2023, consists of 13 member agencies and aims to keep Rhode Island on track with its climate goals outlined in the 2021 Act on Climate. These goals include reducing 1990 emissions levels by 45% by 2030, and then by 80% by 2040, and finally reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.
The state is currently on track to meet its targets, according to Elizabeth Stone ’96, an environmental policy analyst at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.
According to a Sept. 15 EC4 presentation, recent declines in the state’s emissions have been largely driven by initiatives in the electricity and transportation sectors that aim to increase electric vehicle and renewable energy sales.
Because there was previously more demand for grants than EC4’s grant program could sustain, the council prioritized proposals that lost access to outside funding or were reliant on the environmental council’s grants, Stone said.
Timmons Roberts — a member of the EC4 Science and Technical Advisory Board and a professor of environmental studies, environment and society and sociology — believes that approving too many programs caused the funding to be split into smaller amounts in previous years.
The Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission was among the several grant recipients. According to Todd Bianco, the chief economic and policy at the RIPUC, the commission applied for the funding to support a clean energy and climate policy analyst in helping meet state climate requirements.
Rhode Island Commerce received a $100,000 grant to grow its Energy Efficiency Grant Program for Small Businesses, which reimburses small firms for energy-saving upgrades, according to Matt Touchette, a spokesperson for R.I. Commerce.
Other proposals focus on compiling information relevant to climate initiatives. RIDEM, for example, received $35,000 for the Rhode Island Resilient Coastal Forests Project, which aims to create a shared database of the state’s natural resources and various environmental threats.
Nearly a third of the grant money has been designated to the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority for three different programs. The largest grant given to RIPTA — totaling $440,000 — aims to increase flex transit by strengthening microtransit services in light of recent service cuts aiming to address budget shortfalls, according to the grant announcement.
RIPTA has been experiencing a $32.6 million budget shortfall and plans to reduce service on 45 out of 67 lines, The Herald previously reported.