Last week, a meeting of Florida flooding policy managers was washed out in South Florida by a deluge of 26 inches of rain in just eight hours, unprecedented rainfall made far larger due to the climate change crisis that Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump consistently belittle. And it’s not even hurricane season yet. In fact, climate change causes extreme flooding year around since warmer air holds more water vapor, making storms produce additional “heavy precipitation events,” according to the U.S. National Climate Assessment.
Sunshine State homeowners now face massive increases in home insurance costs due to climate change impacts, if they can get insurance at all. Since DeSantis became governor four years ago, policy home insurance rates have gone up 50% for Floridians, and increases aren’t stopping. And experts expect reinsurance costs to go up another 50% more this summer.
“Most homeowners’ insurance policies do not include flood insurance,” says state Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier. Flood insurance can easily add another $1,500 to the bill. All of these costs help make inflation higher in Florida than the national average. By 2100, if greenhouse gas emissions are not dramatically reduced, Florida could face sea levels rise by up to 6 feet, with more than 900,000 properties at risk of being underwater. Welcome to the world of increasingly brutal climate disasters that will make the lives of average Americans, especially the elderly, far more insecure and expensive, if emissions are allowed to continue rising, as they will if Trump or DeSantis becomes president after the next election.
None of this seems to concern Ron or Don. Trump has infamously denied climate change and as president deliberately tried to dismantle every climate protection law he could. DeSantis is taking a “boy with his thumb in the dike” position, the deluded view that Florida can easily adapt despite ever more vicious climate disasters, while dismissing cutting greenhouse gas emissions as “left-wing stuff,” as Time magazine has noted.
In contrast, Joe Biden is making unprecedented progress on reducing climate change, shepherding three major clean energy bills through Congress that together can help meet his goal of reducing U.S. greenhouse gases by 50% from 2005 levels by the end of this decade. These new laws will unleash an American economic and clean energy renaissance, creating millions of new jobs, lowering consumer costs for energy, ending our reliance on imported oil, and competing globally against China and others for the crucial new clean energy technologies worth trillions a year globally. This is a dynamic, hopeful, responsible vision for America’s future.
But much work remains. Congress must pass legislation to reform our sclerotic energy permitting system, which is preventing the rapid, cost-effective build out of clean energy projects, as a report last year from the Progressive Policy Institute found.
Just as importantly, the Biden administration needs to develop more aggressive international policies to compel China and other major global greenhouse gas emitting nations to cut their emissions just as the U.S., Europe and our allies are now doing.
One key area of opportunity involves U.S. trade policy. The administration has begun to propose import fees in certain sectors like steel on nations like China that have far higher emissions intensity in their economies. This is meant to incentivize reductions in China’s emissions or deny them access to U.S. markets. Biden should consider offering more comprehensive, ambitious approaches on trade and climate to compel China and others to reduce emissions.
Trump and DeSantis have no serious plans to tackle these difficult issues. The Donald is running ads against DeSantis about pudding (really!); Gov. Ron is too scared to face the media, preventing the press from covering even routine bill signings, before hustling off to New Hampshire to meet with big money donors to cry “woke!”
Back home, climate change is making life in Florida increasingly costly and dangerous. Hurricane Irma left a path of destruction in 2017, killing 123 Floridians, followed by Hurricane Michael the next year; between the two they wreaked $30 billion in damages.
Difficult issues like climate change cannot be solved with empty political slogans or blatant attempts to pit Americans against each other. Yet these are what Trump and DeSantis offer. Instead, solving our challenges requires hard work creating policies that boost our economy, protect our safety, reduce emissions, create jobs and preserve our environment. This Earth Day 2023, Americans should reflect carefully on the stark choice they will face in 2024, because that choice will affect our nation and the world for centuries to come.
Bledsoe is strategic adviser at the Progressive Policy Institute. He served as communications director of the White House Climate Change Task Force under President Clinton.
