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Opinion posted by Karen Paley, CCL member, on Independence News for Independence Financial Partners on February 19th, 2015.
There are movements afoot to promote renewable energy in Rhode Island. I know because on January 26 I slipped unnoticed out of the office on Jefferson Boulevard and drove to the State House to hear Representative Aaron Regunberg, D-Providence, members of the Energize Rhode Island Coalition, and two business owners introduce a piece of legislation (LC 3475) that would put a fee on carbon emissions and return the revenues to the people of Rhode Island. Supporters of this legislation say it will “create 1000 new jobs in the first two years, fund renewable-energy and energy-efficiency projects, and provide rebates to residents to help offset increases in energy costs. On the same day, as it turned out, Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed released recommendations from the “Green Jobs RI” report, including “an extension of the State’s Renewable Energy Standard, which mandates annual increases in the use of power from solar panels, wind turbines, and other clean sources. I point out these events because they are indicative of the kind of initiatives being taken up by communities all over the world since nearly 187 countries pledged to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted at the end of the recent Paris climate talks, "Markets now have the clear signal they need to unleash the full force of human ingenuity and scale up investments that will generate low emissions and resilient growth." Investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency now will support the wave of the future.
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