A new report from a group called Environment Rhode Island asserts that Rhode Island’s carbon dioxide emissions have soared 24 percent between 1990 and 2007, which is going in the wrong direction for a state trying to reduce its impacts on climate change. But the state’s top environmental official says that figure is an anomaly and that while the state will not meet its goal of returning to 1990 levels by next year, it is moving in the right direction.

W. Michael Sullivan, director of the state Department of Environmental Management, said the 24 percent figure is “an artifact of the reporting system” because it’s comparing 2007, when four gas-fired power plants were running for long periods, with 1990, when in-state power plants were running less frequently.

Electric power is generated, transmitted and consumed on a regional basis, so regional data is more valid, Sullivan said.

In fact, data from the U.S. Department of Energy, which was used for the Environment Rhode Island report, shows that per capita carbon dioxide emissions in the Northeast decreased from 1990 to 2007. Emissions stayed the same or decreased in every part of the country except the plains states.

In fact, while CO2 emissions were up significantly in New Hampshire and to lesser extents in Maine, Vermont and Rhode Island, much of those increases were offset by reductions in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Rhode Island had the lowest carbon dioxide emissions per capita of any state in the country — largely because of its decline in industry and short driving distances.

The change in CO2 emissions by sectors between 1990 and 2007 in Rhode Island varied widely. Commercial emissions were down 6 percent, emissions from electrical generation were up 319 percent, industrial emissions were down 5 percent, residential emissions were down 2 percent and transportation emissions were up 2 percent.

“The Northeast is one of the few regions of the country in which oil was once a major fuel for the generation of electricity,” the report said. “As the price of oil has risen over the past decade, however, the region has largely weaned itself from petroleum for electricity generation, often replacing it with power from cleaner burning and more efficient natural gas-fired plants.

The report says Rhode Island produced 11 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2007. Transportation produced more than 38 percent of the emissions, residential: 21 percent; electricity generation: 25.6 percent; industrial: 5.5 percent; and commercial: 9.5 percent.

Rhode Island is a participant in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that has capped emissions from electric utilities until 2014 and afterward will start requiring overall reductions. Utilities also must buy credits for the carbon they emit.

Sullivan said the state’s efforts to develop an offshore wind farm also should help lower its carbon dioxide emissions in the long run. It costs more up front, he said, but once the wind farm is running, there is no carbon signature.

The next step, Sullivan said, will be to do more with transportation. Work continues on developing cleaner fuels.

Caitlin Seeley, an organizer for Environment Rhode Island, praised Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed for supporting clean energy legislation.

The report, and other energy reports, can be found at www.environmentamerica.org.

To see the state’s greenhouse action plan, go to: www.dem.ri.gov/programs/bpoladm/stratpp/greenhos.htm.

plord@projo.com