Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, is back in the spotlight as he briefs residents on the arrival of Hurricane Milton, amid warnings it could be one of the most powerful storms to ever hit the state.
DeSantis, who dropped his presidential campaign in January, is as governor responsible for implementing Florida’s emergency plan by coordinating agencies, marshaling resources and urging residents to follow evacuation orders.
It’s a role he is unfit to play because of his record on the climate crisis, Florida activists say.
“Florida isn’t safe with DeSantis at the helm of our state government,” said Matthew Grocholske, 20, campaign strategy lead with the Orlando, Florida, chapter of the youth-led Sunrise Movement.
Less than two weeks after it was slammed by the deadly Hurricane Helene, the state is bracing for Hurricane Milton, a category 5 storm.
Florida environmentalists say that DeSantis’s policies to boost fossil fuels, suppress carbon-free energy and ignore global heating have fueled the climate crisis that has exacerbated such hurricanes.
Asked to comment on the criticism from environmentalists, Julia Friedland, the governor’s deputy press secretary, said: “You, and your publication, are despicable for running nonsense stories like this the day a major hurricane is making landfall in Florida.”
DeSantis on Wednesday urged millions of Floridians in Milton’s expected path to evacuate. “We are bracing and are prepared to receive a major hit,” he said.
Hurricanes – including Helene – are becoming more dangerous due to the climate crisis, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. DeSantis’s policies have fueled that crisis with his policies and rhetoric, climate advocates say.
“When it comes to our climate crisis, Ron DeSantis is easily the worst governor in Florida’s history,” said Delaney Reynolds, 25, a PhD student in climate resilience at the University of Miami and lead plaintiff in a 2018 youth-led climate lawsuit against the state government.
DeSantis’s opposition to climate action began early in his career. One day after taking office in 2013, the then representative voted against a measure proposed after Hurricane Sandy to guarantee people could collect on federal flood insurance claims.
During his 2018 run for governor, he pledged to protect Florida’s Everglades and waterways. But though he admitted that “human activity contributes to changes in the environment”, he also said: “I am not a global warming person.” More recently, he has gone further, slamming climate action as “woke”.
There is ample evidence that warmer ocean temperatures fuel more powerful storms, and preliminary studies show Helene’s strength was made far more likely by global heating.
Yet as Florida was battered by record-breaking rain this past June, DeSantis staunchly denied any potential link to the climate crisis.
“This clearly is not unprecedented,” he said at a news conference at the time. “I think the difference is, you compare 50 to 100 years ago to now, there’s just a lot more that’s been developed, so there’s a lot more effects that this type of event can have.”
In August, DeSantis’s administration sparked outcry for its so-called Great Outdoors Initiative, which included plans to pave over thousands of acres at nine state parks and erect 350-room hotels, golf courses and pickleball courts. In May, the governor made headlines for signing legislation scrubbing most references to climate change from state law. The policy, which took effect on 1 July, restructured the state’s energy policy to nullify goals to boost wind and solar, instead focusing on hardening energy infrastructure against “natural and manmade threats”.
“We’re restoring sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots,” DeSantis posted on X.
During his run for president in the 2024 Republican primary, DeSantis also promised to ramp up domestic oil and gas production and fend off electric vehicle mandates, moves that climate experts warned would have boosted greenhouse gas emissions.
His promises rhymed with his state policies. This past legislative session, DeSantis reportedly quietly helped craft a ban on wind energy infrastructure in Florida. And he also signed a far-reaching energy omnibus bill boosting the gas industry and increasing the barriers to purchasing electric vehicles.
“The Florida we grew up loving is slipping away with each storm, and DeSantis is ignoring that,” said Yoca Arditi-Rocha, executive director of the Miami-based non-profit Cleo Institute, which advocates for climate education. “We’re losing the places that define who we are as Floridians, and DeSantis is moving us in that direction, ignoring this crisis in his own back yard because of political reasons.”
Last year, DeSantis turned down federal aid for energy efficiency, electrification and slashing carbon pollution. In 2022, he vetoed from the state budget a $5m allocation for a hurricane shelter in a north-east Florida town, and barred the state’s pension fund from making investment decisions that consider the climate crisis. The previous year, he adopted a bill banning Florida’s cities from adopting 100% clean energy goals. Such policies have exacerbated the climate crisis, which fuels hurricanes like Milton and Helene, Grocholske said.
“The catastrophic level of this hurricane is directly due to the policies our state government is passing,” said Grocholske. “It’s clear that [DeSantis’s] administration has been one of the biggest threats to climate justice our state has faced in its history.”
Perplexingly, as DeSantis has attacked climate efforts, he has backed environmental conservation, saying he channels the conservationist president Theodore Roosevelt. This year alone, he announced funds to restore the Everglades, address harmful algae blooms, and directed revenue generated from a tribal compact to fund flood control and water quality improvement.
Arditi-Rocha said her organization “applauds” DeSantis’s conservation efforts, noting some of them could help protect the health of crucial carbon sinks. But those moves cannot make up for his pro-fossil fuel policies, she said.
“Climate change is this overflowing bathroom, and DeSantis is coming in with towels,” she said. “He’s putting on more and more towels without turning off the faucet, without tackling the root of the problem.”
DeSantis often describes his conservation initiatives as economically beneficial. But by increasing carbon emissions, he is costing the state money and lives, said Reynolds.
“Frankly, he should be given a special merit of honor for so overtly, consistently and consciously failing to address the cause of our climate crisis,” she said. “What he has done will tragically cost our state untold billions, if not trillions, of damage for generations to come.”
