By U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez
Homeowners are the ones who incurred the hefty costs when extreme weather strikes, especially those who live in low-lying coastal areas. Now is the time for all levels of government, in conjunction with the innovations made by the private sector, to come together and fortify America’s infrastructure resilience.
Companies are raising the cost of homeowner insurance to cover the escalating risks associated with hurricanes, flooding and every-day rain events associated with the effects of climate change.
The situation has gone from bad to worse for Florida domestic insurance carriers (who cover most of the state’s homeowners’ market) this year, as in just the first half of 2020, the companies sustained $501 million in underwriting losses and $227 million of negative net income.
Those losses, from weather losses and litigation, are translating into rate increases for homeowners ranging from more than 20% to nearly 40%. If unaddressed, climate change will lead to even higher premiums.
Among other dubious distinctions for 2020, it contained the highest temperature on record, and the National Hurricane Center had to turn to the Greek alphabet in September just to keep up with names for tropical storms. By the time the year ended, we experienced 30 named storms (the highest on record), 13 hurricanes (second-highest on record), and six major hurricanes (tied for second-highest on record), which is more than double the activity of an average season.
U.S. hurricane damage exceeded $37 billion, according to insurance broker Aon, the eighth-highest annual total on record. Estimated insured losses due to those storms topped $15.6 billion. Eventually, such losses will drive down property values.
Organizations predicting risk forecast that $5.7 billion in residential property value in Miami-Dade County is at risk of being flooded by 2050.
In 2020 alone, Americans paid $25 billion to recover from extreme weather, further underscoring the need for better, more sustainable technologies and practices. There will be a point at which insurers are no longer willing to underwrite homeowner insurance policies, rendering the cost of insuring a home out of reach for most Americans.
It’s almost as if we are willing to make our homes unaffordable and our planet uninhabitable for millions of people. What are we willing to do to confront the changing climate that is destroying our planet and pricing us out of our homes? Would we rather pay astronomical insurance costs, or go uninsured?
Now more than ever, it is incumbent upon all of us to invest instead in clean energy and resiliency solutions to deal with the impacts we have created and prevent the worse ones coming down the pipeline. We can have a resilient Florida, but we need to address our aging infrastructure, upgrade to a modern electric grid, and reduce the emissions causing the increasingly damaging weather.
Congressman Carlos Gimenez proudly represents the people of Florida’s 26th congressional district, encompassing all of Monroe County and the southwest portion of Miami-Dade County.
“The Invading Sea” is the opinion arm of the Florida Climate Reporting Network, a collaborative of news organizations across the state focusing on the threats posed by the warming climate.
Congressman Giménez, thank you for a candid – albeit locally targeted – treatise on the regional impacts of this monumental GLOBAL crisis. One passages alluded to the global nature of our climate emergency: “Now more than ever, it is incumbent upon all of us to invest instead in clean energy and resiliency solutions to deal with the impacts we have created and prevent the worse ones coming down the pipeline.”
It’s not that simple.
Investing in more clean energy will not solve this problem. This confuses means with ends, sidesteps the problem, and delays real progress. Accelerated clean energy deployment would be a RESULT of enacting policies that address the actual problem. It’s critical we understand that many of the solutions we’re reaching for will be OUTCOMES of effective climate policy responses. Solutions sans Policy = Potemkin villages.
Allow me to explain: If we were to magically convert the entirety of FL-26… no, the state of FL… no, the entire USA 100% renewable energy, that would not fix the problem! This confuses means with ends, even if you ignore the fact that electricity generation alone is just 27% of the GHG problem. Our climate doesn’t care how many solar panels we install. The future of our climate will be determined by how much more heat-trapping greenhouse gases (GHGs) we add to our atmosphere.
G.K. Chesterton wrote: “It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It’s that they can’t see the problem.” So what’s the problem? During the past five years, banks invested over $3.8 TRILLION into the fossil fuel industry, with investments up last year from 2016! Why? Because dirty energy still makes lots of money, and it will continue to. Until it doesn’t.
Q: How many solar panels does it take to fix the broken economics perpetuating this crisis?
A: NONE. Wrong question. More solar panels won’t stop this. Removing the economic incentive to keep digging will.
It’s time to heed the experts. We must address the source of climate disruption. Our first step must be to significantly slow and eventually stop fossil fuel extraction and combustion.
Top scientists around the world (IPCC), leading economists, and a growing cadre of business leaders – the experts who study this – all agree: We’re not going to transition to a clean energy economy while allowing fossil fuels to remain artificially cheap. That is why the experts agree we need a high price on carbon. Until then, the dirty fuel industry will continue to enjoy the biggest free lunch in history. Privatized profits and socialized costs. Our social and environmental costs will keep mounting.
The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act is a revenue-neutral, border-adjustable “CarbonCashBack” bill with 57 House co-sponsors already. Can we see some Republican leadership for a #PriceOnPollution?
The Energy Innovation Act:
► will reduce America’s carbon pollution 50% by 2030, putting us on track to reach net-zero emissions by 2050
► will spur more affordable clean energy (a *result* of creating the policy incentives)
► is affordable for ordinary Americans because it puts money in your pocket. The money collected from the fee is given as a monthly dividend, or “CarbonCashBack” payment, to every American to spend with no restrictions. Most low-and middle-income Americans will come out financially ahead or break even. We can’t fix this on the backs of the poor.
► Saves Lives – this policy will improve health and save 4.5 million American lives over the next 50 years by reducing the pollution Americans breathe. Poor air quality is responsible for as many as 1 in 10 American deaths today and sickens thousands more.
We’re not going to move the needle without moving the market. And we’re not going to decarbonize our future without de-profitizing carbon. 27 Nobel laureates, every living former Fed Chair, and over 3,500 economists – the greatest number to agree on any topic, ever – concur; we must enact an upstream Federal #CarbonCashBack policy that charges major polluters and returns 100% of the net proceeds to all citizens. The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2021 (H.R. 2307) meets these criteria. It has over 55 cosponsors and broad bipartisan appeal within the business community. We need conservative leadership for bold climate action. Please consider becoming the first Republican co-sponsor of the revenue-neutral “#CarbonCashBack” climate policy, the EnergyInnovationAct.org.
Well said Greg! It seems like a price on pollution would be the best way for Rep. Gimenez to combine his desire for meaningful climate action with conservative free market principles. I am sure that his constituents would appreciate the Representative’s support for concrete legislation to back up the message he presents in this piece.
It is certainly refreshing for a long time resident of S. Florida to see leaders coming around, heeding the warnings signs that have been communicated by the scientific, environmental communities, and constituents for quite some time. Apparently, you and many others are becoming aware of the growing climate related risks, including financial, now materializing when efforts were lead to avoid being placed in a reactive position and frankly understood. Recently, a theoretical physicists said “humans are not good at coping with risks they have never encountered before, exemplified by the politics of climate change”. Humanity truly hopes that your words in this article will be backed by actions, initiatives, and support, not only to manage economic risks, but others including social, environmental and biodiversity. If you care about clean energy, perhaps you can weigh in on the State finalizing legislation to prevent clean energy from expanding in the Sunshine state by pre-exempting municipalities from governing representatively, and contributing to setting a path towards clean energy and other actions addressing climate change. The exemption would also make S Florida and the entire state dependent on dirty energy (allegedly 74% of electricity is sourced from natural gas [emits CO2 and methane), and one can argue would deter the explosive potential for job growth in clean energy and other climate/resilient/circular/sustainable technologies, tapping into the entrepreneurial, innovative, and capital proliferation under way to solve the problems facing life and other assets. Additionally, acknowledging the risks associated with climate change, we encourage you to work in unison with all members of Congress to address climate change and fairly transition, such as the infrastructure bill highlighting resilient infrastructure, and the bevy of other solutions and policies that would strengthen the values of our country: innovation, competitive free markets, prosperity, quality of life, justice, and economic security. In closing there is a wealth of ambition, creativity, human power and capital waiting to be unleashed locally, leading us to a better future.
Congressman Giménez, thank you for a candid – albeit locally targeted – treatise on the regional impacts of this monumental GLOBAL crisis. One passages alluded to the global nature of our climate emergency: “Now more than ever, it is incumbent upon all of us to invest instead in clean energy and resiliency solutions to deal with the impacts we have created and prevent the worse ones coming down the pipeline.”
It’s not that simple.
Investing in more clean energy will not solve this problem. This confuses means with ends, sidesteps the problem, and delays real progress. Accelerated clean energy deployment would be a RESULT of enacting policies that address the actual problem. It’s critical we understand that many of the solutions we’re reaching for will be OUTCOMES of effective climate policy responses. Solutions sans Policy = Potemkin villages.
Allow me to explain: If we were to magically convert the entirety of FL-26… no, the state of FL… no, the entire USA 100% renewable energy, that would not fix the problem! This confuses means with ends, even if you ignore the fact that electricity generation alone is just 27% of the GHG problem. Our climate doesn’t care how many solar panels we install. The future of our climate will be determined by how much more heat-trapping greenhouse gases (GHGs) we add to our atmosphere.
G.K. Chesterton wrote: “It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It’s that they can’t see the problem.” So what’s the problem? During the past five years, banks invested over $3.8 TRILLION into the fossil fuel industry, with investments up last year from 2016! Why? Because dirty energy still makes lots of money, and it will continue to. Until it doesn’t.
Q: How many solar panels does it take to fix the broken economics perpetuating this crisis?
A: NONE. Wrong question. More solar panels won’t stop this. Removing the economic incentive to keep digging will.
It’s time to heed the experts. We must address the source of climate disruption. Our first step must be to significantly slow and eventually stop fossil fuel extraction and combustion.
Top scientists around the world (IPCC), leading economists, and a growing cadre of business leaders – the experts who study this – all agree: We’re not going to transition to a clean energy economy while allowing fossil fuels to remain artificially cheap. That is why the experts agree we need a high price on carbon. Until then, the dirty fuel industry will continue to enjoy the biggest free lunch in history. Privatized profits and socialized costs. Our social and environmental costs will keep mounting.
The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act is a revenue-neutral, border-adjustable “CarbonCashBack” bill with 57 House co-sponsors already. Can we see some Republican leadership for a #PriceOnPollution?
The Energy Innovation Act:
► will reduce America’s carbon pollution 50% by 2030, putting us on track to reach net-zero emissions by 2050
► will spur more affordable clean energy (a *result* of creating the policy incentives)
► is affordable for ordinary Americans because it puts money in your pocket. The money collected from the fee is given as a monthly dividend, or “CarbonCashBack” payment, to every American to spend with no restrictions. Most low-and middle-income Americans will come out financially ahead or break even. We can’t fix this on the backs of the poor.
► Saves Lives – this policy will improve health and save 4.5 million American lives over the next 50 years by reducing the pollution Americans breathe. Poor air quality is responsible for as many as 1 in 10 American deaths today and sickens thousands more.
We’re not going to move the needle without moving the market. And we’re not going to decarbonize our future without de-profitizing carbon. 27 Nobel laureates, every living former Fed Chair, and over 3,500 economists – the greatest number to agree on any topic, ever – concur; we must enact an upstream Federal #CarbonCashBack policy that charges major polluters and returns 100% of the net proceeds to all citizens. The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2021 (H.R. 2307) meets these criteria. It has over 55 cosponsors and broad bipartisan appeal within the business community. We need conservative leadership for bold climate action. Please consider becoming the first Republican co-sponsor of the revenue-neutral “#CarbonCashBack” climate policy, the EnergyInnovationAct.org.