TALLAHASSEE — As the Republican National Committee gathers in South Florida, environmental advocates are enlisting state GOPers to raise their voices against climate change.
Florida is the land of hurricanes and sunny-day flooding and — with its 8,000 miles of coastline — is ground zero for the damaging effects of the world’s changing atmosphere.
It’s also a presidential battleground state coveted by President Donald Trump, who has labeled global warming a “Chinese hoax” and will address the RNC at its winter meeting Thursday night.Environmental groups are pushing to put climate change front and center while the group meets this week at Trump’s Doral resort outside Miami. They’re asking state Republicans and business owners who have taken the lead on the issue in Florida to make themselves heard this week.
Some of them are.
"It would only make sense for this to be a priority not just because of the science but also because of the politics," said former Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), who served in the House from 2015 to 2019 and was a founding member of the Climate Solutions Caucus.
With the 2020 election gearing up in the battleground state, some Florida Republicans are saying the party should emulate its state leaders, who have begun to address climate change, and even some Republicans in Congress, who are developing a strategy to appeal to voters worried about the environment.
"To ignore the issue and call it a hoax when in fact Republican leaders in Florida are beginning to broach the issue seems very out of step," said Susan Glickman, Florida director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, who helped pull together the loosely organized effort.
In an October survey by Florida Atlantic University, more than two-thirds of Floridians agreed or strongly agreed that they were concerned about climate change and the well-being of future generations in Florida.
Trump will speak at the RNC’s winter meeting Thursday night after warning the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday that environmental activists — who he described as fear-mongering “prophets of doom” — will cripple global economies and strip away individual liberties.
In Florida, GOP leaders have offered limited acknowledgment of climate change, which scientists say threatens coastal cities and a thriving beach tourism industry.
The shift in message since former Gov. Rick Scott was succeeded by fellow Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has been significant, if subtle.
Since taking office a year ago, DeSantis has appointed a chief science officer and a chief resiliency officer and has directed the Department of Environmental Protection to establish an Office of Resiliency.
State Rep. Chris Sprowls (R-Tampa), speaker-elect of the Florida House, told Republicans in September during his acceptance speech that they need not fear the phrases “climate change” and “sea-level rise” — words that reportedly were banned during Scott's two terms in office.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, a Republican, signed a pledge last week to make the city carbon neutral by 2050.
And state Sen. Tom Lee (R-Brandon), chairman of the Committee on Infrastructure and Security, said Florida has "lost a decade" by not addressing climate change.
Climate change is a “big deal” and the RNC should address it at Doral, Lee said Tuesday.
“It’s time to stop denying that our sea level is rising, our climate is changing,” he said. “We don't have to embrace some of the more dramatic assessments of what is coming our way. We don't have to even get too far into causation.”
On Wednesday, former Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Colleen Castille published an op-ed in the Tallahassee Democrat encouraging her fellow Republicans nationally to follow Florida's lead.
Castille, who led the department from 2004 to 2007 under then Gov. Jeb Bush, a one-time Republican presidential candidate, said the state GOP hasn’t embraced the issue since former Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican at the time, made it a political centerpiece when taking office in 2007.
As a real estate consultant to the city of Key Biscayne, she said she’s watched the city's renourished sand beaches eroded by hurricanes and rising tides.
Republicans need to acknowledge the harm being caused to people and Florida's economy, she said.
"The RNC has to realize that the people are being affected by this pretty negatively," she told POLITICO before the column was published. "The economy is being affected by it pretty negatively. It is an issue that has to be brought to the table."