COP29 Baku, Azerbaijan: The Elephant in the Room (Pun Intended)

Today is the first day of the United Nation’s 29th Climate Summit known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP29 for short. This year’s event is being held in Baku, Azerbaijan and some 40,0000 delegates (less than 1/2 of the record attendance at COP28 in Dubai last year) from 197  nations are expected to discuss and debate the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that was first constructed in 1992 to create a global stage to address our climate crisis and discuss what mankind must collectively do together to solve this complex problem.

As in recent years, money will be atop everyone’s mind as the world discusses how to pay for the transition away from fossil fuels and to renewable energy that society is undertaking, but even more so during what some are calling the “Finance COP.” Priorities this year will include:

1. The New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG)

In 2009 the developed nations of the world agreed to set a goal of providing $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing nations reduce emissions and to pay for the resilience projects that they need to protect themselves from the resulting damage our warming world causes, such as sea level rise. The phrase that United Nations’ members use for that goal is create what’s called a “New Collective Quantified Goal,” or NCQG for short.

That goal was not met until 2022 and it’s now clear that the annual amount, the $100 billion, is far too little money to address our growing climate crisis in developing nations. Estimates of how much money is needed each year vary greatly, as do the ways experts calculate such costs, but by any measure it’s a sizable amount and likely somewhere between $500 billion and $1 trillion per year. At COP29 negotiators will debate increasing the amount needed each year, the timeframe, distribution of funds, and review the formula to calculate the amount that’s needed annually.

2. The Loss and Damage Fund

And, speaking of finance topics, during last year’s COP28 meeting in Dubai member nations were able to agree to terms for a Loss & Damage fund for the first time in history, including having the World Bank overseeing the fund and creating an oversight Board that will guide how the Fund operates. The idea of the Loss & Damage Fund is that it intends to help vulnerable nations, countries that often produce little carbon emissions that are causing the climate crisis but are subjected to the impacts of our climate crisis, address their physical and social infrastructure needs so that they can have access to money for adaptation and resiliency projects. At this year’s COP, the nations of the world will need to consider increasing the amount of money that they are willing to commit to the Fund and related topics.

You can learn more about the Loss & Damage Fund in a post I wrote while in Egypt for COP27 in 2022 entitled Life Over Death here or a post I wrote from Dubai last year entitled Math & Science here.

3. Reviewing & Revising Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC’s)

In Paris in 2015, countries around the world agreed to update their climate commitments, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), every five years and the next milestone for current data is in early 2025. Baku will be the last major meeting of the world’s nations before the new commitments are due to be published and, thus, COP29 is an ideal place to discuss and debate their plans and to ensure they are bold enough to align with the world’s agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as called for in the Paris Agreement. Is each country on track to meet its needed goals? Is society collectively on track? What adjustments need to be made to meet the goal?

4. Firm Commitments & Action Instead of Promises

“We made an agreement in Dubai to transition away from fossil fuels. The problem? We aren’t doing that. We’re not implementing. The implications for everybody, and life on this planet, is gigantic.”
John Kerry, Former US Secretary of State & US Climate Envoy

Last year’s conference ended a half day later than its scheduled conclusion as negotiators furiously tried to have countries agree to a final agreement that called for a formal transition that would ultimately “phase out” fossil fuels. Over half of the countries were in unison on that goal, that wording, but alas delegates disappointingly failed to agree to include any reference to either a “phase out” or a “phase down” of fossil fuels. You can read about those final overtime hours and the resulting agreement in a post I wrote entitled COP Out? The Dubai Document here.

Although the conference concluded without a phase out or down formal agreement, many nations made all sorts of commitments on a range of important steps including promises to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, improve food resiliency, increased renewable energy production, reduce carbon in transportation, reduce methane pollution, and so forth. This year in Baku it will be important to witness whether the world’s nations affirm their COP28 promises by turning them into actionable plans with published specific steps they intend to take, detailed timeframes, and anticipated measurable goals so their progress can actually be transparently monitored. It’s one thing to make a pie in the sky promise and a vastly different one to take real steps to make the type of change we need to see before we run out of time. COP29 will be an important window into the world’s real dedication, by country, over making and accelerating the transition to renewables.

5. The United States of America 2024 Presidential Election

When I began writing this post, I intended to only include the four priorities noted above but the topsy turvy nature of global climate politics now demands that I include a fifth: how will the recently concluded 2024 U.S. election impact COP29?  America’s soon to again be new President has campaigned on a promise to have the United States exit the Paris Agreement, as well as to unwind any number of sustainable policies designed to help address our country’s transition to renewables and perhaps dramatically increase oil production while embracing antiquated technologies such as natural gas and carbon dioxide emitting vehicles.

You will recall that following his election in 2016 he did, in fact, have America exit the Paris Agreement, a decision that was then reversed by President Biden after his election in 2020 when America rightfully returned to being a participant. Any loss of time towards reducing America’s greenhouse gas production, much less embracing a global leadership position on the topic that will define a generation’s time on earth, should concern every citizen in our country and that’s especially true considering that 2024 is very likely soon to be designated the hottest year on record, as well as the first to trend above the 1.5 degrees Celsius aspirational goal in the Paris Agreement.

During COP29 America’s forthcoming Administration’s plans will certainly be the talk of the conference, including their impact on the NDCs’ updated planning mentioned above. That’s especially so given that the United States is currently the world’s second largest producer of carbon pollution. While the point of this post is to outline key issues at this year’s COP, I will say that playing politics is counterproductive to progressing the transition that our country and world need if we are to ever solve our climate crisis yet it appears clear that, once again, America sadly plans to do just that by going backwards in time by prolonging the transition, diminishing our country’s opportunity to lead the world’s transition, while increasing American taxpayers’ costs and the pain people and communities all over our country will suffer by siding with the polluters instead of our environment.

I think it’s fair to say that the nations of the world are intently watching the United States in light of last week’s election, likely saying “here we go again,” and asking themselves “how will our global society ever solve our climate crisis if America once again takes a dramatic steps backwards at such a critical time in the fight for our future?” The conference, discussions, debates, meetings, and all else that’s taking place in Baku mean little without a committed United States and that is likely to be the most important story in the world, and certainly at COP29, over the next two weeks.

#AlwaysBelieve, #BeInconvenient, #MyOceanPledge, #RatherBeInCourt, #SaveMiami, Baku, Climate Change, Delaney Reynolds, Eco Warrior, Global Warming, Miami, Miamisearise.com, Politics, Sea Level Rise, Sea Rise, The Sink or Swim Project

Delaney Reynolds v. Florida Public Service Commission

I was born in 1999 and a couple months ago turned 25.

25 years is, of course, a long time. It’s certainly enough time to reach a variety of milestones within one’s life or career. If you are like me maybe you can’t accomplish a challenging goal or finish one project or another over the next week, month, or even the next year, or two, or ten. But over a considerable stretch like 25 years, any of us can accomplish all sorts of impactful, beneficial, and lasting things. Heck, 25 years is more than enough time to foster the type of transformational change that makes the world remarkably, admirably better.

That is unless you are the Florida Public Service Commission, the state agency that oversees and regulates Florida’s electric utilities.

You see, over the course of my entire lifetime, for at least the last 25 years and counting, it is my view that the Florida Public Service Commission has failed me and countless other young citizens by violating our fundamental and inalienable right to life and to enjoy and defend life as guaranteed to us by Article I, Section 2 and 9 of the Florida Constitution by engaging in a systemic pattern and practice of automatically only ever determining that the fossil fuel-dependent 10-Year Site Plans Florida’s public utilities author are “suitable.”

And that’s why a few days ago I filed a civil lawsuit against the Commission, Delaney Reynolds v. Florida Public Service Commission, in Miami-Dade County’s 11th Judicial Circuit Court. Allow me to share a few things with you about the Commission, and by extension the electric utilities they regulate, that are consciously polluting our atmosphere and the waters that surround our fragile Florida.

The Florida Public Service Commission’s 10-Year Site Plan

Following its creation in 1887 by the legislature, the Florida Public Service Commission began regulating investor-owned electrical utilities as a division of Florida’s legislative branch of government in 1951.  From its website here’s how the Commission describes how they overview their work:

I am not sure about their need to conduct a “balancing act” or worry about the utility and its shareholders because, by law, the Commission has exclusive authority to supposedly regulate Florida’s public utilities for the protection of the public welfare. Amongst other duties the Commission is responsible for determining whether the electrical utilities’ proposed future plans, as disclosed to the Commission every two years in something called 10-Year Site Plans, are “suitable” or “unsuitable.” In November of 2022 I wrote a blog entitled “Suitable” or “Unsuitable?” An Update on Florida’s Energy Transition to Renewables that is directly related to today’s post as well as the lawsuit I’ve recently filed and that you can read here. As I explained nearly two years ago, the Commission plays a critical role, or should, in ensuring that our electric utilities transition away from using polluting fossil fuels and to clean renewable energy.

Within the required 10-Year Site Plans each utility must estimate their future power generating needs (including the amount of power it anticipates selling, the energy sources it plans to use to generate the power consumers purchase from them, and so on) and the location of proposed power plants. These 10-Year Site Plans are the only method by which any Florida governmental agency has to plan for, review, and determine the legal suitability for the long-term operation, structure, and trajectory of Florida’s electricity needs.

Within nine months of receipt of the utility’s 10-Year Site Plan the Commission must, by law, make a preliminary study of the Plan and classify it as “suitable” or “unsuitable.” To do this there is a long list of items the Commission “shall review” in each Plan including: “the effect on fuel diversity within the state,” “the anticipated environmental impact of each proposed electrical power site,” “possible alternatives to the proposed plan,” “the amount of renewable energy resources the utility produces or purchases,” “the amount of renewable energy resources the utility plans to produce or purchase over the 10-year planning horizon and the means by which the production or purchase will be achieved,” and “a statement describing how the production and purchase of renewable energy resources impact the utility’s present and future capacity and energy needs.” The Commission, by law, even has the authority to “suggest alternatives to the plan.”

As you can see, renewable energy is supposed to be a significant part of the Commission’s process in determining whether these Plans are “suitable” or “unsuitable” to Floridians, much less comply with various laws.

The Commission’s determination has a truly profound impact on the applicable utility, much less Floridians’ wellbeing and our environment. For example, a utility cannot construct or obtain regulatory approval of energy projects subject to the Florida Electrical Power Plant Sitting Act without those projects 10-Year Site Plans having been deemed as “suitable.” Nor can utilities commence construction of electrical power plans not subject to the Florida Electrical Power Plant Sitting Act such as gas internal combustion or gas-fired combustion not associated with combined cycle facilities without those projects having had their 10-Year Site Plans deemed to be “suitable” by the Commission.

For the utilities the ‘good news’ is that time and time again, year after year, decade after decade the Commission has deemed their 10-Year Plans as being “suitable.”

The bad news relates to the rest of us and our environment in that the Commission’s history of systemically designating these Plans as “suitable” has led it to create an electrical system that’s overtly based on polluting fossil fuels that have damaged and continue to destroy Florida’s atmosphere and oceans.

Florida’s Renewable Energy Policy

Now you will be happy to know that since 2006 Florida has had a law in place called the Florida Renewable Energy Policy. You will also be pleased to learn that our state’s legislature had the foresight to give the Florida Public Service Commission the responsibility to make sure that our electric utilities are meeting the Renewable Energy Policy’s requirements. And if you guessed that the mechanism the Commission uses to ensure compliance with the Renewable Energy Policy is to review each utility’s 10-Year Site Plan, you’d be correct.

This review process by the Commission of the 10-Year Site Plan is also the only process where any Florida agency is required, by state law, to consider the anticipated environmental impacts of each proposed power plant because the legislature gave the Commission the sole authority to “administer and implement” the Florida Renewable Energy Policy. Here’s part of what the State of Florida’s Renewable Energy Policy law declares:

“It is the intent of the Legislature to promote the development of renewable energy; protect the economic viability of Florida’s existing renewable energy facilities; diversify the types of fuel used to generate electricity in Florida; lessen Florida’s dependence on natural gas and fuel oil for the production of electricity; minimize the volatility of fuel costs; encourage investment within the state; improve environmental conditions; and, at the same time, minimize the costs of power supply to electric utilities and their customers.”

When Florida’s legislature created our Renewable Energy Policy it had the vision to realize that a utility system that sources its energy from natural gas and fuel oil, both damaging fossil fuels, would harm our state’s environment as well as be costly and unreliable sources of energy for our consumers. For those reasons state leaders at the time had the wisdom to suggest that Florida develop its renewable energy market and diversity the types of fuel we source our power from. And, yes, it’s the Florida Public Service Commission that’s charged with overseeing our Renewable Energy Policy and it’s the 10-Year Site Plan that allows the Commission to guide the electrical utility’s transition towards renewable energy and away from fossil fuels like natural gas and fuel oil. Or at least that’s how things were supposed to work.

So, with this well thought out, logical Renewable Energy Policy law in place you might be asking yourself how is the Commission doing in demanding that the utilities that they, and they alone, regulate “lessen Florida’s dependence on natural gas and fuel oil” or, for that matter, having the utilities “improve environmental conditions” or “minimize costs?” The short answer is that the Commission is failing miserably. It is failing to uphold Florida’s Renewable Energy Policy and its systemic approval of the utilities’ 10-Year Site Plans as being “suitable” over at least the past 25 years has created a fossil fuel-dependent electricity sector in our state that releases a nationally and globally significant amount of climate pollution into our atmosphere and oceans that serves as an enormous, growing barrier towards the necessary transition to renewable energy our established law has long demanded.

Consider, for example, that in 2021, the most recent year for which the U.S. Energy Information Agency has data available, Florida’s electrical utilities produced 91.2 million metric tons (MMT) of carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution. For perspective, then consider that that’s more than the country of Columbia produced that year (77.57 MMT) despite that country having almost 30 million more people living in it than live in the State of Florida. Not surprisingly, given the abate lack of what I will call adult supervision from the Commission, Florida’s electrical utilities account for a substantial portion of our state’s total statewide CO2 pollution: 47% from 1999 to 2021.

And here in Miami-Dade where I live, the situation is dire. My local power company, Florida Power & Light and their Turkey Point plant located on the shores of Biscayne Bay has, for example, generated on average over 2.0 MMT of CO2 emissions per year over the last 10 years. That’s more carbon pollution from just one power plant in one Florida county than over 50 countries around the world generate! In 2022, for example, Turkey Point generated 2.3 MMT of carbon pollution, an amount comparable to the country of Chad’s 2.51 MMT of CO2, yet that nation has over six times the population that Miami-Dade has.

The high level of climate pollution produced by Florida’s electric utilities is indisputably due to their overwhelming reliance on fossil fuels, especially gas, a source of energy that the utilities have long included in their 10-Year Site Plans and that the Commission has automatically deemed as “suitable.” Today, approximately 76% of Florida’s energy is derived from natural gas, a fossil fuel that emits truly lethal methane pollution.

How widespread is the use of polluting natural gas in Florida? Well, for starters, consider that eight of the state’s 10 largest power plants are energized by natural gas. Florida is the second largest producer of electricity in the United States (Texas is first) and the third largest consumer of electricity (after Texas and California) and in light of our overt, dangerous reliance on natural gas for our power needs, the amount of climate pollution produced by Florida’s electric utilities is the second highest in the United States, trailing only Texas. Oh, and Florida produces no natural gas, it must all be bought from other states and transported by pipe into Florida, increasing every single Floridian’s electrical cost and the pollution utilities generate throughout the supply chain.

And despite a variety of laws calling for a reduction in the use of natural gas, left largely un-regulated Florida utilities have steadily and dramatically increased reliance on this fossil fuel as their go to source of power with the Commission their ever-supportive sidekick automatically approving Plan after Plan as “suitable.” For example, when I was born in 1999, the Commission’s 10-Year Site Plan suitability determination report stated that utilities collectively projected a “substantial increase in natural gas-fired generation over the next ten years, from approximately 14% (in 1998) to 38% (in 2008) of all energy generated.” In fact, in 2008 Florida’s electrical utilities relied on gas for 40.4% of their source power.

And if that’s not bad enough, in 2009 the utilities projected that the fossil fuel natural gas as an energy source would increase to 46.7% by 2018. Alas, the utilities utilization of gas projections over that decade was slightly off and with the ever-supportive Florida Public Service Commissions ever “suitable” automatic stamp of approval that lethally polluting fossil fuel actually rocketed to an astounding 68% of the energy Florida electrical utilities were sourcing by 2018.

And, as of May 2024, the Commission’s irresponsible behavior of not putting a stop to the pollution now finds that Florida utilities sourced 76% of their energy from natural gas, a figure significantly higher than the national average in other states of 45.3%.

And speaking of the Florida Renewable Energy Policy, in addition to the immeasurable damage its lack of action has caused to our environment by not deeming the utility plans as “unsuitable,” the Commission’s irresponsibility has led to the Sunshine State being seriously behind much of our nation in renewable energy use. Today, 18 years after its enactment and the Commission being exclusively charged with upholding that law, a mere 8.3% of the energy Florida’s utility’s source comes from renewable energy. The national average today is 22.7%.

If all of this is not disappointing enough to learn, then consider that the three largest electrical utilities (#1 FPL which serves about 50.92% of Florida’s electric consumers, #2 Duke Energy which serves about 17%, and #3 TECO which serves about 7.2%) that collectively distribute 75% of the total electrical power Floridians consume, businesses operating in the Sunshine State for 100 years or more, source a pathetically small amount of their energy from inexpensive, clean renewable energy.

Nearly none.

Despite massive advertising and marketing campaigns that suggest that renewable energy, especially solar, and protecting the environment are a core part of their businesses, the fact of the matter is that renewable energy accounts for a fraction of the power Florida’s electric utilities source and sell to consumers. According to the most recent data (2022) from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) renewable energy accounts for just 5% of FPL’s source energy, a truly pathetic 1.5% of Duke’s, and 7% for TECO.

As they say, the numbers don’t lie. And given those numbers – any of those I’ve highlighted above that I’ve highlighted as a start and especially the 5%, 1.5%, and 7% – any argument that any of us (or our elected political “leaders”) should “trust” the utilities to “do the right thing” or believe that they will follow the law (as well as common and business sense) and significantly use renewable energy on their own instead of embracing antiquated polluting sources like natural gas is simply delusional.

Of course, that’s where our state regulator, the Public Service Commission, comes in. Or is supposed to come in.

To be clear, it is my view that the Commission bears the very direct responsibility for the growth in fossil fuels as the dominant source of electrical energy in Florida, the shamefully small use of renewable energy as a source of the Sunshine State’s power, and the resulting damage that our citizens and environment are suffering from the massive amount of pollution Florida’s utilities generate. As the only state agency in existence that can shift the trajectory away from the polluting power options that dominate the market today to renewable ones, the Commission has the power and tools needed to change things for the better. That change starts with the Commission upholding its legislatively established responsibility and enforcing our laws by deeming 10-Year Site Plans as “unsuitable” because of their overt long-term use of fossil fuels. By simply doing its job, concluding that these Plans are obviously “unsuitable,” the Commission can and would compel the utilities to plan to seriously and substantially utilize renewable energy options as the core source of the fuel they generate instead of the polluting fossil fuels they are predominately using.

Florida’s State Comprehensive Plan

The Florida Renewable Energy Policy law is not the only tool that the Florida Public Service Commission has to help transition our utility industry towards using renewable power for our energy needs instead of fossil fuels. You see, the Commission’s evaluation of the utilities’ 10-Year Site Plans is also the only mechanism in our state that’s supposed to be used to track and ensure compliance with the goals and intent of something called the State Comprehensive Plan. At this point I might not surprise you by saying that I want to emphasize the phrase here: “supposed to be used.”

You see, amongst other things, Florida’s Comprehensive Plan requires, and I quote, that:

 “Florida shall reduce its energy requirements through enhanced conservation and efficiency measures in all end-use sectors and shall reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide by promoting an increased use of renewable energy resources and low-carbon-emitting electrical power plants.”

Meaning that the State of Florida’s own laws say we should be reducing carbon dioxide from our atmosphere by increasing renewable energy including the use of low-carbon-emitting electrical power plants. And, yes, it is the Florida Public Service Commission that’s charged with ensuring compliance of this part of the State Comprehensive Plan. At this point in this post, I doubt that you are going to be surprised to learn that the tool the Commission has at its disposal to ensure compliance with our Comprehensive Plan is (you guessed it) their review of the utilities’ 10-Year Site Plans.

So, here again, by rubber stamping seemingly every 10-Year Site Plan that crosses their desks, the Commission is not only failing to uphold its responsibility to us, in this case to ensure compliance by the utilities with the Comprehensive Plan rather than essentially facilitating the utility’s production of prodigious amounts of lethal pollution that is being pumped into our fragile Florida.

So, just to review;

1. The Florida Legislature long ago made the Florida Public Service Commission the exclusive regulator for the State of Florida’s electric utilities.

2. And by law the legislature gave the Commission the sole authority to “administer and implement” Florida’s Renewable Energy Policy – a statute that, among other things, says that our state should be reducing its reliance on natural gas and fuel oil for the production of electricity and to improve our environment.

3. And it is our State Comprehensive Plan that demands we reduce carbon pollution in our atmosphere by increasing the use of renewable energy resources (like solar and wind energy) and the Commission is supposed to oversee that too by reviewing the electrical utilities 10-Year Site Plans.

Yet despite the fact that the utilities are failing to make sufficient progress on their own, the Commission has habitually deemed these plans as “suitable” every year for at least 25 years. Since at least the year I was born (1999), the Florida Public Service Commission has failed to uphold its responsibilities and follow the law. And when I say that this, all of this, makes me sick, I am not just talking about the pollution. It is the conscious dereliction of duty by the Commission that’s also sickening and that absolutely must be corrected.

It’s blatantly clear that the utilities have not been truly motivated to make this transition in any impactful way on their own. And I think it’s fair to say that it’s just as clear that the Florida Public Service Commission has been happy to take the powerful utility’s side instead of the law, the citizens of Florida, and our environment for far too long.

The time has come to adjust the “balancing act” that the Commission proclaims it is performing by shifting away from the utilities’ and their shareholders’ agenda and towards the rest of us and our environment. And that is why I’ve filed a new lawsuit in hopes of having the judiciary help me get the Public Service Commission to do its job and to ensure that our state’s laws are followed so that the transition to renewable energy can take place in a meaningful way before it’s too late.

#AlwaysBelieve, #BeInconvenient, #MyOceanPledge, #RatherBeInCourt, #SaveMiami, Climate Change, Delaney Reynolds, Delaney Reynolds v. Florida Public Service Commission, Eco Warrior, Florida Public Service Commission, Global Warming, Miami, Miamisearise.com, Politics, Sea Level Rise, Sea Rise, The Sink or Swim Project

Fun & Sun in the “Venice of the South”

View of San Marco Basin, Gaspar van Wittel, 1697

Later this week I am off to Venice, Italy to meet with academics and government officials there as part of my Ph.D. research related to protecting South Florida from sea level rise. I am excited to learn about what that city and region is doing to combat our climate crisis, including their Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico (aka MOSE) mobile sea level and tidal barrier gates that are designed to protect Venice and the Venetian Lagoon, and their various ongoing efforts to install coastal reinforcement, lagoon improvements, and raise the land around the water’s edge. I look forward to sharing what I learn about what’s happening in “The Floating City,” as it’s nicknamed, but before I leave I wanted to talk about a place much closer home, a place that’s been called the “Venice of the South.”

Galveston, Texas sits on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, less than 60 miles from Houston in a region that’s home to over 7,500,000 people. Whether it’s weather, population, traffic, language, or, yes, climate change, the greater Galveston/Houston region sure seems to have a lot in common with South Florida. And, as you are about to read, the threat of sea level rise there, like here in South Florida, presents costly and complex challenges that have no simple solutions but offer our region important lessons.

Of great concern in the “Venice of the South” is a recent analysis of tide-gauge and satellite data that has been measuring sea levels in the region since 2010, which finds that the Gulf of Mexico’s waters have risen twice as fast there as the global average. America’s space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), published similarly concerning data last year when it predicted that Galveston sea levels could rise by an estimated 18 inches by 2040 and that the region could experience over 250 days of flooding per year by 2050 (you can learn more about NASA’s sea rise data here).

Other than England’s shoreline along the North Sea, the results on the coast in Galveston appear to be the second fastest place on the planet for sea rise over that period of time and it’s easily the largest increase here in the United States at 8.4 inches. Again, that’s an increase of 8.4 inches just since 2010. Here are the top three (four, since third place was a tie) largest increases and their location in the US during that time frame:

  1. Galveston, Texas: 8.4 inches
  2. Charleston, South Carolina: 7.1 inches
  3. Jacksonville, Florida: 6 inches (Tie)
  4. Miami, Florida: 6 inches (Tie)

Researchers at Texas A&M University have, for example, been using modern mapping tools and collecting data to understand the impacts and influencers of the rising seas in the Galveston area. Tidal data, for example, from a gauge in place since 1908 at Pier 21 on Galveston Island has measured a rise in sea level of about two feet since it was installed. Researchers estimate that about one foot of that total, thus half, is due to land subsidence caused by groundwater withdrawal, oil and gas extraction, and surface sediments compacting. The other half is caused by the warming of our atmosphere and oceans over that same time period which, in turn, melts glacier and sea ice which increases sea levels.

When it comes to our climate crisis and sea rise, South Florida has a lot more in common with the Galveston/Houston region than just making the “top” three list above. One study I’ve read concluded that 17% of the wetlands in Galveston have been lost since 1954. What was once marshlands filled with saltwater have been drained, filled in, and developed. Sounds an awful lot like what’s happened in South Florida along our coastline to our east (much less to the west as development creeps towards the Everglades). The wetlands of Galveston, like our precious mangrove forests here in South Florida, are highly effective natural barriers against tropical weather including hurricanes and flooding, that should be protected from development at all costs but that are constantly under threat by developers ever eager to build along the water’s edge.

Fighting back against the sea is also not a new phenomenon in Galveston any more than it is here in South Florida. You see, in September of 1900 a catastrophic hurricane hit the region and sadly killed over 6,000 people. In 1902, in response, Galveston implemented laws that required the then existing buildings to be raised and famously also built a 17-foot tall, three mile long seawall that has since been expanded to about ten miles long. The Galveston seawall is so well known in the region that the Visitor’s Bureau there touts it (I am not making this up, as humorist Dave Barry used to write) as a vacation “hot spot” for “some fun in the sun.”

The “fun” aside, locals there and from the State of Texas have concluded that the seawall and other historic steps they’ve taken over the decades are no longer effective in a world where manmade climate change is rapidly rising sea levels and threaten not just Galveston but the City of Houston. And today, as is happening in Venice, Italy with the installation of the MOSE gate system, modern Galveston is trying to combat sea level rise with a range of new and old resilience initiatives in hopes of again protecting its community and Houston beyond.

For example, just as South Florida is slowly working on various coastal resiliency plans to try to protect our region including partnering with the US Army Corps of Engineer’s (USACE) on the so called Miami-Dade Back Bay Study, the folks in the Galveston/Houston area are likewise working with the Army Corps on a truly massive plan to install more (and higher) flood walls, flood gates, levees, 18 miles of double sand dunes, and other steps over the next two decades along the Texas coast. Galveston’s plan, nicknamed the “Ike Dike,” following 2008’s Hurricane Ike that hit that region, has an initially estimated $57 billion cost and will be the largest project in the history of the Army Corps of Engineers.

As with South Florida, as seas rise it is increasingly clear that existing developments along the Texas coast will require more continual and increasingly costly fortifications. Rising seas there also increase the level of ground water that, in turn, erodes the foundations of homes and buildings, threatens infrastructure including septic systems, and increases so called “sunny day” flooding throughout the year in ways that make conducting normal daily activities anywhere from challenging to impossible. Whether it’s perpetual beach replenishment to artificially perpetuate the “fun in the sun” or things like raising roads, sidewalks, and other critical infrastructure, it’s increasingly clear that such plans and their cost are becoming controversial. To many folks the idea of pouring more sand, and money, into the same problem no longer seems to make sense.

Speaking of coastal development, we find yet another similarity between Galveston and South Florida. Developers love to build buildings, especially high rises, along the water’s edge for many reasons including the beach access they afford and that the views command premium prices from buyers. And, understandably, people love to live in them. Governments love the tax dollars they generate too and because of this, elected leaders are often willing to bend rules and regulations to accommodate “just one more” building on the sand. Unfortunately, the beach sand in Galveston, as with South Florida, has the pesky habit of being washed into the sea starting the moment it’s replenished and perpetually fixing that issue comes at a high cost. There’s also the issue of the costly renovations needed to raise roads and infrastructure out of harm’s way to allow owners access to their buildings. All of these types of steps have many in Texas understandably starting to question whether the seemingly endless use of public money should be spent on what increasingly seem to be foolish pursuits as seas rise higher.

And speaking of business parallels, I sense a connection related to the energy industry too. You see, Houston, just a few miles up the road from coastal Galveston where climate change is causing havoc, is touted as the “Energy Capital of the World” and is home to nearly 5,000 energy-oriented businesses. That includes almost 50 of the top 100 public oil and gas production companies, as well as 13 of the 20 largest natural gas companies. And here in Florida I can’t think of a more powerful, politically connected industry than our monopolistic electric utilities: businesses that source an astounding 81% of their power from fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal, the very products (along with oil) that are causing earth’s climate to warm and seas to rise.

Many people are beginning to find it sadly, sickly ironic that an ostensibly endless stream of public money is being spent to battle rising sea levels caused by climate change while state governments in both Texas and Florida so openly embrace and perpetuate the actual polluters causing the problem. Rather than pouring more and more public money into an endless stream of sand and other band aid measures, it sure seems to make sense that we should be trying to address the cause of the predicament by exhibiting the leadership desperately needed to transition these economies to clean, sustainable energy.

Like I said, the Venice of the South has a lot in common with South Florida including that “fun in the sun” thing. The question is will either state ever take the steps our environment and society need to fully transition to sustainability or is all of that “fun” they tout truly relegated just for the polluters and the politicians protecting their dirty businesses?

Arrivederci.

#AlwaysBelieve, #BeInconvenient, #MyOceanPledge, #RatherBeInCourt, #SaveMiami, Climate Change, Delaney Reynolds, Eco Warrior, Galveston, Global Warming, Houston, Italy, Miami, Miamisearise.com, Politics, Sea Level Rise, Sea Rise, The Sink or Swim Project, Venice
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