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This summary is part of Beyond the Beltway: A Report on State Energy and Climate Policies produced by the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at Berkeley Law

 

Florida is the paradigm of the ostrich with its head in the sand. It may be the state most vulnerable to climate change, yet the state government is assiduously ignoring the problem even though some cities and counties and South Florida are keenly aware of the risks. Even after Hurricane Irma, Governor Rick Scott still professed complete uncertainty on the subject: “Clearly our environment changes all the time, and whether that’s cycles we’re going through or whether that’s man-made, I wouldn’t be able to tell you which one it is.”[1]

Here’s what we know about the risks, from the pre-Trump EPA:

“The Florida peninsula has warmed more than one degree (F) during the last century. The sea is rising about one inch every decade, and heavy rainstorms are becoming more severe. In the coming decades, rising temperatures are likely to increase storm damages, harm coral reefs, increase the frequency of unpleasantly hot days, and reduce the risk of freezing to Florida’s agriculture.

“Changing climate is also likely to increase inland flooding. Since 1958, the amount of precipitation during heavy rainstorms has increased by 27 percent in the Southeast, and the trend toward increasingly heavy rainstorms is likely to continue. More intense rainstorms can increase flooding because rivers overtop their banks more frequently, and more water accumulates in low-lying areas that drain slowly.”[2]

There is also the likely increase in hurricane intensity, due to warmer waters and higher evaporation rates.

What is the state doing in response to these threats? Basically, nothing. Florida does not have a renewable portfolio standard or even voluntary targets. It does not provide any subsidies for renewables. About all that the state has done is to adopt a net metering policy and energy efficiency standards for new buildings. Not surprisingly, renewables are not a major part of the energy picture. According to the a consortium of state universities, “Florida was second only to Texas in 2014 in net electricity generation from natural gas, which accounted for 61% of Florida’s net generation; coal accounted for almost 23%, the state’s nuclear power plants accounted for 12%, and other resources, including renewable energy, supplied the remaining electricity generation.”[3] If you do the math, that leaves renewables with a 4% share, minus whatever energy the state gets from miscellaneous sources like fuel oil.

As Professor Holly Doremus observes, real ostriches do not stick their heads in the sand to avoid danger. If any of them ever had that behavior, they were eliminated from the gene pool long ago. In reality, as she says, “ostriches are not that stupid.”[4] But the state of Florida seems to think that the same strategy will work for it.

 

  1. Marc Caputo, “Florida Governor Remains Unsure About Climate Change After Hurricane Irma,” Politico (Sept. 13, 2017,) http://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2017/09/14/florida-governor-remains-unsure-about-climate-change-after-hurricane-irma-114498.
  2. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “What Climate Change Means for Florida” (Aug. 2016), https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-08/documents/climate-change-fl.pdf.
  3. Florida Energy Systems Consortium, “Florida Energy Facts,” http://floridaenergy.ufl.edu/florida-energy-facts/.
  4. Holly Doremus, “The Ostrich Administration,” Legal Planet (Aug. 23, 2017), http://legal-planet.org/2017/08/23/the-ostrich-administration/.