#DeSantis shifts right on climate change as Florida faces hurricanes

After Hurricane Idalia smashed into Florida last month, flooding the Big Bend region with devastating storm surge and splitting a 100-year-old oak tree at the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee, Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed back against comments by President Joe Biden linking natural disasters to climate change.

Scientists believe the warming planet is allowing hurricanes to strengthen faster and pack a bigger punch because they feed off warmer ocean water. Idalia went from a Category 1 storm to Category 4 in a day.

But DeSantis seemed to dismiss the idea that climate change may have factored into Idalia’s wrath, highlighting strong storms from decades past, including one that hit the same region in 1896.

“We’ve got to stop politicizing the weather and stop politicizing natural disasters,” DeSantis said during a press conference last week in Yankeetown.

A few weeks earlier, during the first GOP presidential debate, DeSantis bristled when asked to raise his hand if he believes human activity is warming the planet, saying “We’re not school children” and launching into a criticism of the media.

Pressed by the moderator – who earlier noted ocean temperatures off Florida hit an astonishing 101 degrees this summer – and another candidate about whether he was raising his hand to acknowledge human-caused climate change, DeSantis said: “No, no, no – I didn’t raise a hand.”

As Florida is battered by catastrophic storms, sets temperature records on land and sea and confronts a property insurance crisis worsened by climate factors, DeSantis has campaigned against action to stop climate change.

He champions increasing fossil fuel production and vows to roll back the Biden administration’s push for electric vehicles.

The approach mirrors his broader strategy of hewing closely to the most conservative views within the GOP as he challenges former President Donald Trump from the right, although it contrasts with the image DeSantis presented when he first ran for governor.

While DeSantis never embraced climate change as an important issue and was cautious about how he discussed it, his 2018 campaign centered around environmental advocacy. Climate-related initiatives are part of his early environmental record.

DeSantis created an office to deal with the impacts of sea level rise and pushed for money to support such efforts.

The governor’s early environmental actions won him bipartisan praise and created a “sense of skeptical optimism” that he might take stronger steps to tackle climate change, said Luigi Guadarrama, the political director for Sierra Club’s Florida chapter.

Those efforts never materialized, though, and DeSantis has become increasingly hostile to climate solutions, vetoing legislation and rejecting funding for such efforts as he seeks to lead a party that, polling shows, largely is comprised of voters who don’t see the issue as important, even if the vast majority of Americans do.

DeSantis once lauded as Florida’s ‘green governor’

DeSantis’ hard right presidential primary campaign – which has highlighted his conservative positions on everything from immigration to abortion – is similar to how he approached the GOP primary in his first race for governor.

During that campaign, DeSantis challenged former Florida Agriculture Commission Adam Putnam – a GOP establishment favorite – from the right. DeSantis hammered Putnam’s moderate record on immigration and generally ran as a staunch conservative.

On environmental issues, though, DeSantis tried to position himself to the left of Putnam, pledging to be a stronger advocate for clean water and slamming Putnam for receiving support from sugar farmers who are blamed for nutrient pollution that feeds devastating algae blooms.

Florida was in the throes of major algae blooms that were fouling waterways.

DeSantis’ environmental advocacy largely focused on water quality, but it also touched on climate impacts.

On Jan. 10, 2019, just a few days after taking office, DeSantis signed an executive order that included a long list of environmental actions.

Second to last on the list was the creation of a new state office to deal with sea level rise.

The ordered created “the Office of Resilience and Coastal Protection to help prepare Florida’s coastal communities and habitats for impacts from sea level rise by providing funding, technical assistance and coordination among state, regional and local entities.”

The office was led by Florida’s first chief resiliency officer, a move hailed as a major acknowledgment of the state’s unique vulnerability to climate change.

An editorial in the Tampa Bay Times lauded DeSantis as “Florida’s green governor” and said he “has done more to protect the environment and tackle climate change in one week than his predecessor did in eight years.”

DeSantis’ first budget proposal called for funding to address “the challenges of sea level rise, intensified storm events, and localized flooding.”

DeSantis wasn’t eager to tout himself as a climate advocate.

“I’m not in the pews of the global warming leftists, I’m just not,” DeSantis said while running for governor.

Yet compared with Rick Scott, the former governor turned U.S. senator whose administration was accused by state employees of prohibiting them from using the terms “climate change” and “global warming”, DeSantis was viewed as potentially more open to addressing the issue.

“Early on he seemed to be doing things that were maybe greener than previous governors,” said Brian Soden, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Miami who was among 10 Florida scientists who wrote a letter to Scott in 2014 offering to educate him on climate science.

Florida’s first chief resiliency officer only lasted six months on the job, though, and wasn’t replaced for nearly two years.

DeSantis moved from modest efforts to address climate impacts, while largely ignoring the greenhouse gas emissions at the root of the problem, to outright opposition to some emissions reduction efforts.

DeSantis’ presidential campaign did not respond to questions about the governor’s comments and positions on climate issues.

‘Active hostility on any sort of climate change work’

After any early focus on environmental issues, DeSantis shifted his attention to addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Environmental concerns occasionally resurfaced.

The governor continued to target water quality improvements, frequently touting his administration’s considerable financial support for Everglades restoration, even as environmentalists such a Guadarrama said the efforts didn’t go far enough.

In 2022, DeSantis announced the state would spend $166 million from a legal settlement on buying more than 400 electric buses in Florida.

“This is a win-win for air quality and advancing the state’s efforts to bolster growing electric vehicle usage,” the governor said at the time, while avoiding any mention of climate change.

Yet after launching his presidential campaign this year, DeSantis issued two vetoes that riled climate activists.

“It’s gone from very tepid, flaccid dollar investments on certain conservation projects, and frankly inaction on climate change, to active hostility on any sort of climate change work, any sort of climate change issues, and even preventing potentially good climate work from happening,” Guadarrama said of DeSantis’ environmental record.

In June, the governor nixed bipartisan legislation that was expected to result in the state buying more electric cars. The bill required state agencies to consider the cost of vehicles over their entire life, and was expected to favor electric cars because they have lower maintenance and fuel costs.

DeSantis didn’t say why he vetoed the bill.

Then in July, DeSantis vetoed funding that was needed to draw down $346 million in federal money to help low and moderate income people save money on electricity costs through energy-efficiency programs. The efficiency upgrades would cut down on electricity usage and reduce carbon emissions.

The rejected funding is part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor wrote a letter to DeSantis complaining about the veto. 

“Governor, this summer the rising costs and impacts of the climate crisis are wearing on Floridians, yet you have your head in the sand – and it is costing us a fortune,” Castor wrote. “Your lack of leadership in moving the ‘Sunshine State’ to cleaner, cheaper energy is very costly for Floridians.”

DeSantis also spearheaded legislation this year taking aim at an investing practice known as ESG – Environmental, Social and Governance – that evaluates companies based on issues such as carbon emissions.

The governor has vowed to go further if elected president and roll back Biden’s energy policies.

‘We will ditch those regs’

In July, DeSantis put out an economic policy platform that touched on energy issues. He vowed to develop more energy from fossil fuels, declaring: “The United States has the best oil and gas resources in the world.”

DeSantis also slammed Biden’s efforts to promote electric cars.

“We are going to reverse the policies of Biden that’s trying to force Americans to buy electric vehicles,” DeSantis said, adding: “We will make sure that we will ditch those regs and we will save the American automobile in this country.”

Trump also is promising to rollback the electric car push and has been dismissive of climate change, once calling it a hoax.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a GOP presidential candidate, echoed Trump’s language at the first GOP debate, saying the “climate change agenda is a hoax.”

Hostility toward climate policy is deeply ingrained in the GOP. A survey released last month by The Economist/YouGov asked voters about the importance of climate change and the environment. While 71% of all voters described the issue as very important or somewhat important, only 45% of GOP voters felt the same.

Some Republicans have been working to try and get the party more interested in the climate issue, which polls show is especially important for younger voters.

A group of young conservatives concerned about environmental issues attended the first GOP presidential debate, and one of them asked a climate change question that was reframed by a debate moderator.

The responses to the moderator’s question ranged from Ramaswamy’s “hoax” comment to Nikki Haley declaring: “Is climate change real? Yes.”

American Conservation Coalition Action President Chris Barnard said he was disappointed by Ramaswamy’s response, encouraged by Haley and hoping to hear more from DeSantis, whom Barnard believes has a strong environmental record.

“We would want to see him tout that environmental record more and relate that back to energy and climate and things like that, and talk about some of those solutions,” said Barnard, whose group is focused on tackling environmental issues from a conservative perspective.

Barnard said Republicans ignore the climate issue at their peril.

“There’s just no way as a party, as a movement, we’re going to be able to win elections without being good on this issue,” he said.

Florida’s climate threat

The issue also is especially pertinent in Florida as another monster hurricane looms off the coast. Hurricane Lee rapidly intensified in the unusually warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean, hitting Category 5 Strength before weakening somewhat.

Soden said climate change makes hurricanes worse in a number of ways. Rising seas increase storm surge, while increased moisture in the atmosphere boosts rainfall.

There also is “growing confidence” that a warmer planet will result in more major hurricanes and allow hurricanes to intensify faster, Soden said.

“If we continue to increase the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from fossil fuels the frequency of these extreme events is going to become more common,” Soden said.

Idalia is among just 10 storms – five of which have occurred in the last seven years – “that have rapidly intensified by at least 40 mph in the 24 hours before landfall,” according to a post on the Yale Climate Connections website by meteorologists Bob Henson and Jeff Masters.

Masters, who founded Weather Underground, said storms that quickly grow in strength are particularly dangerous because they can catch people “off guard.” Climate change makes them more likely.

“Unfortunately, not only is human-caused climate change making the strongest hurricanes stronger, but it is also making dangerous rapidly intensifying hurricanes like Idalia more common,” he wrote.