On the morning of April 10, some of Southeast Florida’s top environmental officials met in West Palm Beach to discuss the region’s climate risks, including an expected 6-12 inch rise in sea level by 2040. Among the cited risks: increases in temperature, coastal erosion, and storm surges – all due to climate change. As a result, counties in the region are taking steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by taking advantage of incentives to increase the use of electric vehicles and requiring capital construction projects to include resiliency and sustainability features.
The next night, about nine miles away in Palm Beach, former President Trump met over dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort home with top oil and gas industry executives from ExxonMobil, EQT Corporation and Cheniere Energy, telling them that they should donate $1 billion to his presidential campaign because he would cut environmental rules that hurt their industry. The event was organized by Harold Hamm, the executive chairman of Continental Resources who just two weeks earlier had contributed $614,000 to a political action committee supporting the campaign of Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax” and railed against the use of electric vehicles.
The two events illustrate the paradox of Florida this election cycle. It’s one of the states most impacted by climate change — along with record heat waves and surging storms, the rising sea and shrinking coast routinely flood driveways in Miami and could put Mar-a-Lago itself underwater in coming decades. Yet Florida is a red state whose Legislature just voted to literally erase the term “climate change” from state legislation and codes and to nullify renewable energy use goals that had been in place since 2022.
That contradiction is reflected in the state’s voters, whose belief that climate change is unfolding right now is higher than the national average (90% to 72%); 68% want their state government and the federal government to do more to address the crisis.
“If you look at the word ‘conservative’ and the word ‘conservation,’ there’s a root word in common.”~ Henry Kelley, co-founder, BlueWind Technology
Yet Trump leads President Biden, who pushed through the country’s most ambitious climate initiative, by nine points in Florida according to a recent poll. And U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, who reportedly once banned the words “climate change” and “global warming” from the executive office when he was the state’s governor, is expected to easily ward off a challenge this November from his Democratic opponent, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who has a strong record on the environment and has pledged to take action on climate change.
But the dichotomy is starting to upend the state’s politics. “Climate plays out every single day in the politics of the state of Florida,” said David Kieve, the president of EDF Action, the advocacy partner of the Environmental Defense Fund. “Voters want to see solutions.”
Henry Kelley is one voter taking that message to heart. A former Tea Party activist and lifelong Republican, he is the co-founder of Pensacola’s BlueWind Technology, which employs 150 people and makes housing for wind turbines. Kelley voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 and was a county chairman for Scott’s first gubernatorial campaign in 2010, but he doesn’t plan to vote for either of them this year, largely due to their refusal to take climate change seriously and resistance to renewable energy sources.
“I refuse to vote for people whose positions I fundamentally disagree with,” he said, citing the state’s recent decision to outlaw offshore wind energy and Trump’s opposition to wind energy in general. “If you look at the word ‘conservative’ and the word ‘conservation,’ there’s a root word in common,” he added, applauding local efforts such as in Miami to reinforce the shorelines.
Kelley said that his stance has made him a “pariah” among fellow Republicans and he is dismayed at the politicization of the climate crisis by both parties. That’s why he’s not voting for Biden either, blaming the president for setting goals for the use of renewable energy that are too aggressive. And he’s outraged at the hypocrisy of GOP lawmakers, who publicly talk about repealing Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act, which has funded climate initiatives in many red states, and yet privately tell him, “The hell we are. It’s creating jobs!”
“When you ask voters what their top issues are, it’s property insurance, which is directly impacted by the climate change impacting Florida.”~ Peter Schorsch, editor, Florida Politics
Kieve acknowledges that climate change may not be changing voters’ minds this election cycle — but one of its symptoms has become a major issue and headache for the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis. Property insurance in the state has spiked in recent years, largely due to flooding caused by climate change that impacts the many homeowners who live in the state’s coastal areas. Yet the GOP-dominated Legislature closed its 2024 session without taking any steps to address the crisis. As a result, it’s the top issue, along with inflation, driving voters to the polls this year, according to a recent poll by the Associated Industries of Florida.
When asked if climate is playing a role in the state’s elections, longtime political consultant and Florida Politics editor Peter Schorsch said, “No, no one is saying that word. But when you ask voters what their top issues are, it’s property insurance, which is directly impacted by the climate change impacting Florida.” He added, “I say that not just as a politico, but as someone who has had their home flooded three times in the last year!”
Longtime ecologist William “Coty” Keller, who lives and works in Port Charlotte, hopes that his neighbors become climate voters this cycle.
“We got what we voted for: officeholders who value the demands of rich donors and corporations over the best interests of the people. Our officeholders have falsely claimed that transitioning to zero-emission energy would hurt the economy. The opposite is true,” he wrote in an email to Capital & Main, noting, “Unless new civic-minded leaders are put in office, our lifestyles and economy will degrade, and life as we know it will not exist for our descendants.”
