A different kind of storm surge

Oct 15, 2024

THE BIG IDEA

Karen, center, and Burton Webb, whose rental property was washed through by Hurricane Milton storm surge, find pieces of their furniture and decorations in a pile of debris a block from their house, on Manasota Key, in Englewood, Fla., Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024.

Debris piles up in Florida in the wake of two massive hurricanes. | Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo

INSURED DISASTER — As Floridians struggle to recover from the devastation wrought by back-to-back storms turbocharged by climate change, they could be facing another wallop stemming from the impact of hurricanes Helene and Milton on the state’s insurance market.

Insurers could be facing tens of billions of dollars in property damage claims from across the nation’s most hurricane-prone state, and that could lead to increased prices for homeowners as companies pass along the higher costs of the reinsurance that they buy to cover major losses.

Reinsurance prices had begun to stabilize this year before the one-two punch of Helene and Milton scrapped hopes of relief for insurers and policyholders, Avery Ellfeldt reports.

“We were beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel,” said Dale Porfilio , chief insurance officer at the Insurance Information Institute. “Now you’ve got two major hurricanes that are definitely going to impact results.”

The bulk of these costs will be shouldered by homeowners, many of whom could face higher rates as property insurers drop coverage and hike premiums across the country to account for increasingly destructive and costly disasters.

All of this is occurring at a time when it is increasingly clear that human-caused climate change is playing a role in accelerating and strengthening extreme weather events — and that at least in the U.S., policymakers are divided over what if anything to do about it.

Evidence of the impact of global warming was all over Helene and Milton, according to Gabriel Vecchi, a Princeton University professor of geosciences, Zack Colman reports.

“Milton went up from a Category 1 to a Category 5 in less than 10 hours,” Vecchi said. “That's sort of outlandish. I couldn't believe it when I saw it.”

An analysis from World Weather Attribution, a collection of climate scientists and researchers, released an estimate that climate change boosted Milton’s rainfall between 20 and 30 percent and wind speed by 10 percent.

None of that has been enough to move congressional Republicans. Only four GOP members out of 42 responded to questions on whether they believe climate change played in the hurricanes and whether it would change their approach to cutting emissions. None attributed the hurricanes’ strength to climate change, Emma Dumain reports.

"If we literally go to zero fossil fuels in the United States and we’re all riding bicycles, do you know how much that will actually cool the planet and by when?" asked Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.), a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee and member of the Conservative Climate Caucus. “It will have zero effect,” railing against the “fake religion” of climate activism.

“America’s emissions are dropping, but China’s are rising,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). “Let us know when Beijing goes green. Meanwhile, we’re going to focus on recovery efforts here in Florida.”

WASHINGTON WATCH

INHALING GREEN — A global treaty that is pushing the pharmaceutical industry to make inhalers more climate-friendly could create a lucrative loophole for some leading drug companies.

Reforms championed by President Joe Biden that have lowered the costs of life-saving medications and treatments and capped out-of-pocket cost for inhalers might not apply to redeveloped versions that don’t contain planet-warming hydrofluorocarbons, Ariel Wittenberg reports.

That’s because greening the inhalers will allow the drug companies to bring them back under patent protection and effectively kill competition for at least a decade, ensuring their ability to charge Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers higher prices.

AstraZeneca, for instance, projects an increase in annual revenue of close to $100 million from the cleaner inhalers, set to undergo regulatory consideration next year. Neither they nor GSK committed to keeping the $35 out-of-pocket cap for patients.

The new inhalers have been developed in response to the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the 1987 agreement to address the growing hole in the planet’s ozone layer. The amendment , which the U.S. ratified in 2022, calls for phasing out hydrofluorocarbons that are found in a variety of products including the inhalers used by millions of Americans with asthma.

“These environmental treaties are just a tremendous windfall for these companies,” said William Feldman , a pulmonologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who studies drug patents and how they influence costs.

DATA DIVE

ESG WORLDWIDE — A new survey shared first with POLITICO shows that the partisan divide on environmental, social and governance issues is still alive and well in 2024.

The 15-minute online survey of more than 14,000 people from 14 countries conducted in July by Global Strategy Group and SEC Newgate revealed gender and political gaps among the 1,013 U.S. respondents.

For starters, the ignorance gap is still there. Half of Americans don’t even know what ESG is, but still nearly 20 percent more Democrats than Republicans said that ethical decision-making and practices and sustainability and environmental factors are important in investment decisions.

About 45 percent of men say companies engaged in ESG initiatives are too politically focused, compared with 35 percent of women. And 74 percent of women say companies can be profitable while also performing well on ESG issues, a view shared by 64 percent of men.

There were some areas of common ground.

A substantial majority of U.S. respondents said treating employees fairly (82 percent), reducing environmental harm (72 percent) and supporting and collaborating with local communities (72 percent) are important company actions. And 71 percent of them said companies should act in the best interest of all stakeholders, not just shareholders — three points below the global average.

The top two recommendations for companies, according to the report: Replace the term ESG in favor of language that more clearly defines the initiatives and goals, and “create crisis scenario plans to deal with anti-ESG backlash.”

Movers and Shakers

BAKER OPENS UP — Shalanda Baker served as Biden's top energy justice lead for the majority of his term before stepping down earlier this year. Now from her perch as the University of Michigan’s first vice provost for sustainability and climate action, Baker spoke with your host about her time at the Energy Department. Catch the full Q&A on POLITICO Pro.

Do you think the administration has been successful at balancing the need to build clean energy fast with protecting communities?

There's a lot of work left to be done. I want to give us some credit for what we were able to stand up in an extraordinary amount of time. I'm proud of what we were able to create. But there are some problems.

One is transparency. Many of us from the inside were working to make sure that we were able to publish the community benefits plans that were put together. Where we ended up compromising was for these large, controversial projects — the office in charge of that program would publish summaries of benefits. That doesn't always give communities an idea of what's coming or when it's coming or who they can contact to make sure they get the jobs that were promised.

Also tracking and tracing benefits. There's a very extensive reporting mechanism that award recipients have to apply. A lot of these projects haven't even broken ground, so we won't know for another couple years really how well we're doing on creating real benefits. And again, that transparency piece will linger.

I’m sure there’s some give-and-take tension here between those two priorities, right?

I just want to challenge the premise. And I challenged the premise even when I was inside. The premise suggests that if we say we're going to move fast, we can, even if we don't engage communities.

We can't move fast unless we engage communities. We have to have communities at the table, otherwise they will protest. So even though it's going to be hard and it may seem slower at the outset, in the long run, it's going to speed up the development process.

Engagement lowers our development risk. It allows us to move more quickly in the long run. So if we are going to move at the scale and speed we need to move at to avert catastrophic climate change, communities have to come with us. Otherwise, they will protest and they will throw up every single roadblock they can.

Of course they're going to have questions, and of course they're going to want to know what is in it for them. And they should, because these are taxpayer dollars. Those projects that are funded by the federal government have to work for every single community.

YOU TELL US

GAME ON — Welcome to the Long Game, where we tell you about the latest on efforts to shape our future. Join us every Tuesday as we keep you in the loop on the world of sustainability.

Team Sustainability is editor Greg Mott and reporter Jordan Wolman. Reach us at gmott@politico.com and jwolman@politico.com.

WHAT WE'RE CLICKING

— Bloomberg reports that Optimus robot prototypes operated with human assistance when they were unveiled by Tesla’s Elon Musk at an event last week.

— Stellantis’s CEO says a protracted transition to EVs could create a cost “trap” for companies investing in both old and new technologies, the Financial Times reports.

— A new study suggests that while they aren’t very profitable themselves, EV chargers can be a boon for nearby businesses. The Washington Post has that story.

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