By Delaney Reynolds and Julie Topf
If you grew up in South Florida over the last two decades, as we have, the impacts of climate change increasingly consume your life. Whether rising sea levels along our shores or dead coral reefs in our waters, we see it with our own eyes. We feel it becoming warmer whenever we step outside as record-breaking temperatures become more common and heat surrounds us, not just in the summer, but always.
Our lives have been filled with extreme flooding that disable our neighborhoods even on sunny days, rain bombs that bring life to a standstill, gentrification from developers rushing to capture our limited supply of higher ground and increasingly more destructive monster hurricanes. If you love Miami-Dade like we do, the harm to our lives and threat to our future from the climate crisis is as undeniable as it is devastating.
As our generation inherits this problem, we are focused on addressing the cause –– pollution from fossil fuels –– before it’s too late. This requires a serious shift to renewable energy, a transition that faces obstacles from both Florida’s electric utilities and their exclusive regulator.
Florida’s electricity sector alone produces more climate pollution than many countries’ entire economies, including Colombia, a country with nearly 30 million more people than Florida. In 2022, Florida’s electric utilities themselves produced 40.1% of all climate pollution in our state and have spent decades building a supply chain almost entirely reliant on methane gas, a toxic fossil fuel pollutant that causes 80 times more warming than carbon.
Today, 84.9% of Florida’s electricity generation is from fossil fuels, with a shocking 81.3% supplied by gas. Florida’s three largest electric providers –– Florida Power & Light (FPL), Duke Energy and Tampa Electric (TECO) –– distribute 81% of our state’s electricity, yet source a tiny fraction of their energy from clean renewables like solar. Just 7.3% of FPL’s electricity, 6.3% of Duke’s and 8.0% of TECO’s are sourced from renewables –– pathetic results after a century in “the Sunshine State.”
In 1951, our legislature bestowed the Florida Public Service Commission exclusive authority to regulate electric utilities in the public interest. The commission’s duties include ensuring utilities comply with the Florida Renewable Energy Policy and Florida’s Comprehensive Plan, both designed to promote renewable energy. However, since at least 1999 –– for the 25 years we have both been alive –– the commission has repeatedly approved every single one of our utility’s long-term energy plans, called “10-Year Site Plans,” despite their reliance on fossil fuels and failure to comply with our laws.
The commission’s blatantly utility friendly “rubber stamp” approach is systematically failing us and our environment. It’s locking our state into fossil fuel dependency for decades to come, further exacerbating the climate crisis, with youth, like us, facing disproportionate impacts and risks. That’s why we, alongside four other Miami youth, have filed a lawsuit, Reynolds v. Public Service Commission, asserting that the Commission’s decades-long approval of fossil fuel-dependent energy plans violates our constitutional rights to life, and to enjoy and defend life, as guaranteed under Florida’s Constitution.
If the court agrees, it could declare the commission’s rubber-stamping unconstitutional and force Florida toward a safer energy future. Just like other youth-led constitutional climate cases, including groundbreaking victories in Held v. State of Montana and Navahine vs. Hawai’i Department of Transportation, this case shows how young people are rising up and demanding change to protect their climate rights in court.
The science and solutions are clear: For over four decades, scientists have proven that 100% renewable energy systems can be achieved by or before 2050, including in Florida. The transition to clean energy is no longer a matter of technical feasibility or economic viability. It is also not a political issue, and cannot be treated as such, because climate change transcends political ideologies –– it impacts us regardless of party lines and regardless of whether we “believe” it is real.
This case is about more than just energy policy; it’s about safeguarding our future. We have the right to grow up in a world where our health, safety and environment are protected, not harmed by the decisions our government makes today. It’s time for Florida to take bold action and lead by example to protect the climate and ensure a livable future for us all.
Delaney Reynolds and Julie Topf are two of the plaintiffs involved in Reynolds v. Public Service Commission, a youth-led constitutional climate lawsuit in Florida.
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What a beautifully written piece! You two young women are so right-on, well-informed, and doing something courageous for all youth in your speaking up.
Thank you for what you are doing to speak the truth, to hold government accountable to you and the Eart.