Category Archives: Miami

I Found HOPE in Washington DC

The last month or so has been a bit of a blur what with my ongoing Ph.D. research, spending over three weeks in Bonn, Germany, as part of the United Nations’ 62nd Subsidiary Body meetings while I worked for the Federated State of Micronesia, and no sooner than I returned to the United States, I was off to Washington DC for two incredibly productive and memorable days just prior to our country’s 249th birthday.

My time in Washington was an unforgettable reminder that young Americans’ voices not only deserve a seat at the table but that we’ve earned it. On July 2nd, for example, I joined the incredible team at Our Children’s Trust (OCT), led by the fierce and ever-brilliant Liz Lee (OCT’s Government Affairs Staff Attorney), for a day of climate advocacy on Capitol Hill. We met with several members of the U.S. House of Representatives and their staff to discuss Lighthiser v. Trump, the federal constitutional climate lawsuit I recently joined as a youth plaintiff, to build support for a new congressional Resolution rooted in climate justice and youth rights (you can learn more about this case in my recent post here).

I am pleased to share that this Resolution will be introduced on Capitol Hill tomorrow (Wednesday, July 16th) in the Senate Swamp at 12:00 p.m. EST, and I hope that if you’re in the DC area, you will join my friends and fellow plaintiffs for the Press Conference! RSVP by visiting bit.ly/resevent2025.

I began what was a busy day with an early flight into DC, and as soon as I arrived and navigated the Capitol’s security, we had a lovely meeting with Representative Schakowsky of Illinois, a longtime environmental champion, and the lead sponsor of our Resolution. From there, the morning was a sprint as we met with Representative Scanlon of Pennsylvania, Representative McClain Delaney of Maryland, and the Legislative Assistant to Representative Maxwell Frost of Florida, who, I’m pleased to say, officially signed onto the Resolution that same day. The tunnels and their hallways under the Capitol were like a beehive of motion, and by day’s end, we’d met with over a dozen Representatives and their staff.

Each of our conversations focused on the legal and constitutional arguments behind Lighthiser v. Trump, which challenges three Trump Administration executive orders that promote fossil fuel extraction, erase climate science from federal websites, and deepen the climate crisis. We’re asking the courts to declare these orders unlawful and block their implementation. But we also need congressional champions to speak out, especially as our rights to life, liberty, and a livable future are on the line.

In addition to these meetings, our team visited other House offices to personally deliver invitations to the July 16th press conference, where we’ll officially unveil the Resolution. It was empowering to walk the halls of Congress with other young Americans who share my concerns and are demanding bold climate leadership while expecting their voices to be heard.

While in DC, I also had the distinct honor of being interviewed as part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on July 3rd to discuss the past decade of my work in climate education, science, and policy, the Lighthiser case, and the critical role that the First Amendment plays in climate activism. To sit on that stage amidst the Mall, steps from the Washington Monument, and participate in an event sponsored by such an iconic institution as the Smithsonian a day before our nation’s birthday made me very proud to be an American.

As I shared onstage, my work since founding The Sink or Swim Project, to suing the State of Florida on multiple occasions, to now challenging our country’s President and his federal executive orders has always relied on my right to speak out, to speak up, to protest, and to advocate. Let there be no doubt that the First Amendment is the foundation of youth climate justice. And that right to speak up and out is, without question, the very essence of what it means to be an American. Without it, our voices would be silenced. With it, we are so very mighty and powerful.

Let none of us forget that, and let all of us cherish and embrace the First Amendment forever. Thanks to the Freedom Forum for sponsoring my participation and John Maynard for the invitation. A special shout-out is in order for Natalia Fleischmann, who conducted my interview with incredible grace and dignity far beyond her 18 years and yet again proved just how powerful and impactful young people in our nation can be.

As a young American, I must say that my time in Washington, DC this month was an inspiring yet humbling experience. Amidst all the daily noise, dysfunction, and disappointment that have been constantly emanating from the White House since January of this year, my time in Washington offered me a pleasant surprise.

It offered me HOPE.

It was deeply motivating to share that stage with another energetic, engaged climate champion and have so many others in attendance, to walk the Capitol and meet with passionate elected lawmakers who share our concerns, and to see our generation’s climate fight gaining momentum. There is hope out there. Things will, I promise, get better because there are a great many fellow citizens like you and me who share our concerns and are dedicated to doing the right thing.

If you’re reading this and wondering if your voice matters, let me be clear: it does. I hope you’ll join us on July 16th as we continue the fight for climate justice and our Constitutional rights together.

Delay, Denial, & Disturbing Developments in Bonn

My first direct, personal introduction to the plight that the world’s small island nations face from our climate crisis was in 2017 when I was honored to address the General Assembly of the United Nations with young people from around the world on World Oceans Day. During my time in New York that summer (you can read a bit about it here), I met children from all sorts of exotic places including Papahanamokuakea (Hawaii), Lord Howe Island and the Great Barrier Reef (Australia), Africa, Sudan, and the Wadden Sea (Netherlands), but it was the stories that the youth from the Republic of Seychelles shared that most touched my heart.

The Seychelles, a remote country in the Indian Ocean 1,500 miles off the coast of Africa, is one of the 39 countries or territories that the United Nations designates as a Small Island Developing State (“SIDS”) and that share a variety of often dire social, economic, and environmental challenges including many from our climate crisis. Abate fear covered their faces as the youth from Seychelles discussed their worries over their nation’s 115 islands being swallowed by rising seas during their lifetimes, forcing them to become climate refugees as a result of mankind’s use of fossil fuels.

I think of those children’s stories often and they were most certainly on my mind every day last month when I had the honor of traveling to Bonn, Germany, to spend over three weeks participating in the 62nd session of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB62) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), serving as a delegate for another Small Island Developing State, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). The SB meetings are meant to be technical, forward-moving, and crucial moments that pave the way for the important global decisions that take place at the annual Conference of the Parties (COP)—in this case, COP30 later this year in Belem, Brazil.

Unfortunately, what I witnessed up close was not the steady progress that SIDS like FSM (and the rest of the world) so desperately need. Instead, I saw repeated delays, deep fractures between developed and developing nations, and worrying signs that some developed countries want to sideline or overlook science altogether.

Here are my four main takeaways from my time in Bonn:

1. The United States Was NOWHERE To Be Found

In a year where the world is on the brink of breaching the 1.5°C threshold, the absence of the United States delegation was both glaring and deeply concerning, while not entirely surprising. As one of the world’s largest historical pollution emitters, its absence sent a powerful, discouraging, and embarrassing message.

For countries like FSM (or even regions like South Florida within the U.S. itself) facing existential threats from sea level rise, the U.S.’s lack of participation is more than symbolic. It undermines trust and weakens collective momentum. Leadership doesn’t work on autopilot, and in Bonn, the silence from the U.S. was deafening.

2. Wealthy Nations Repeatedly Blocked Progress

Time and again, wealthy developed countries voiced their commitment to achieving the Paris Agreement goals, only to stall or block progress in concrete negotiations. The hypocrisy was evident across several agenda items, especially those tied to finance, loss and damage, and the need for a just transition from fossil fuels to sustainable energy.

Developed countries also overtly pushed back on language that would hold them accountable for funding adaptation or financing clean energy transitions in the Global South. It became clear that while they were willing to talk about ambition and the need for solutions, they’re not yet willing to pay for it.

3. Over 50 Agenda Items, Little Consensus 

SB62 had more than 50 active agenda items, yet very few were resolved. Instead of adopting texts or making decisions, many negotiations ended in a stalemate, with documents simply “forwarded” to the next set of such meetings at COP30 in Belem.

That’s a bureaucratic way of saying “we’ll deal with it later.” From the Global Goal on Adaptation to climate finance frameworks and just transition pathways, many of the most pressing issues failed to advance, and the “can,” as they say, was just “kicked down the road.” This kind of delay is not neutral; it actively harms countries and regions on the frontlines of the climate crisis by postponing the support and action that we need to urgently take and make now.

4. Obvious Attempts To Sideline Science

The Global Stocktake (GST) was established under the Paris Agreement as an ongoing review of the world’s progress towards meeting our collective climate goals. It’s designed to be a scientifically based report card of sorts to evaluate our progress and identify areas needing adjustment so as to meet our goals. The Stocktake’s “report card” is based on scientific findings and analyses from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), published in 2021, was based on the research of over 700 experts from 90 countries. Work on the next scientific climate assessment, AR7, began in 2023, and the plan is that its two Methodology Reports will be published in 2027, followed by its Synthesis Report in 2029.

Perhaps the most disturbing development I observed firsthand last month was a push by some countries to decouple the next Global Stocktake (GST2) from the upcoming IPCC AR7. This would deliberately weaken and diminish the role of science in shaping future climate action and transparency. Just like tobacco manufacturers spent decades covering up the truth that smoking is deadly to your health, the world’s oil and gas-producing nations would love to remove/reduce the scientific facts that tell us fossil fuel use is warming our planet from the climate debate.  

Let’s be clear: the IPCC research and reporting are the worldwide gold standard of climate science. Ignoring AR7 during the GST2 process or weakening the science would make it easier for some nations to downplay their responsibilities, avoid stronger ambition, and continue business as usual regarding fossil fuel production and use. It’s a deeply cynical strategic move designed to prolong fossil fuel production, and those of us who value science, justice, and urgency must fight against it with all of our might.

Bonn should have been a stepping stone to progress this year in Brazil at COP30. Instead, it often felt like a holding pattern—one where the stakes were too high to wait, but action was lost amongst a lack of commitment that seemed intentional. For FSM and other small island developing states, like my friends in the Seychelles or closer-to-home places like the Florida Keys in South Florida, this process is not about politics but survival. It’s about whether our homes, cultures, and future will exist in the decades to soon come.

The world must do better as we look forward to COP30 in the Amazon. Developed nations must show up—not just physically but financially and politically. Science must remain at the heart of this process and every decision. And, above all, the voices of vulnerable nations and regions must be heard and acted upon, not delayed, deflected, or denied.

Delay is denial, and our warming climate can no longer wait.

Why We Must Continue Fighting for 1.5°C

I’m writing this post from Bonn, Germany, where I’m attending the UNFCCC’s 62nd session of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB62) – a critical mid-year climate negotiation aimed at helping the world stay on track to meet its climate goals (read more about my trip in a recent blog here). But, after the most recent scientific updates and a stunning rollback of U.S. environmental protections, I’m left asking myself: “What will it take for those in power to finally take the climate crisis seriously?”

According to a significant update presented here in Bonn by Climate Analytics to the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) negotiating bloc, the Earth is now truly, dangerously close to breaching the 1.5°C global warming threshold. According to the World Meteorological Organisation, the world is predicted with 70% certainty to top 1.5°C between 2025 and 2029, sometime within the next three years. The data illustrate that 2024 was already close to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, and that unless we drastically cut emissions starting now, we are likely to overshoot 1.6°C or more, with devastating consequences for ecosystems, economies, and communities.

Let me be blunt: 1.5°C is not just a number, it’s a lifeline, especially for vulnerable places like my home in South Florida and for low-lying nations across the Caribbean and Pacific. Overshooting this target will lock in multi-meter sea level rise over the coming centuries, submerge coastal cities, devastate coral reefs, collapse ecosystems such as the Amazon Rainforest, and expose billions of people to lethal heat and water stress.

And yet, in this moment of scientific clarity and political urgency, the United States (one of the world’s largest emitters of fossil fuels that are causing our climate change crisis) just did the unthinkable. On June 12th, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it will no longer regulate climate pollution from power plants, effectively gutting one of the few federal policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector. I shouldn’t have to, but I do want to note that this department is titled the “Environmental Protection Agency,” not the “Energy Proliferation Agency.”

This is more than just a political decision; it’s a climate crime. It defies science, future generations, frontline communities, and decades of advocacy. And it flies in the face of decades of U.S. knowledge: even back in 1986, President Reagan’s own EPA Administrator acknowledged the need to act on global warming in an article written for the New York Times:

So, why are we moving backward?

From the science presented here at SB62, the message is crystal clear:

1. The rate of warming has doubled since the 1970s.

2. Natural carbon sinks (like forests and our oceans) are failing to keep up, reducing the Earth’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

3. Sea level rise is accelerating, disproportionately affecting small island nations and coastal regions, such as Miami-Dade and Monroe County, as two local Florida examples.

4. Current policies are leading us to 3°C of warminga world of disaster and displacement.

But there is still hope.

The Climate Analytics briefing made it clear that limiting warming to 1.6-1.7°C is still achievable if we act now. And global net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the 2070s could bring temperatures back under control by the end of the century.

This isn’t about blind optimism. It’s about fact-based science, holding polluters accountable, accelerating the transition to renewable energy, and standing in solidarity with the world’s most vulnerable, who have contributed the least to this crisis but are suffering the most.

We cannot give up on 1.5°C. Giving up would be the ultimate betrayal of Small Island Developing States, such as those I am working with here at SB62, as well as global youth and every single future generation forever and ever. It would mean walking away from the most science-based and equitable goal the world has ever agreed upon, undermining net-zero targets and climate justice commitments, and legitimizing fossil fuel expansion at the exact moment we must phase them out.

1.5°C is not dead, but time is running out.

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