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.
