Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who hopes to coast to reelection on Tuesday, has been touted as the future of the Republican Party. This is not only because of his hardline stances on immigration and COVID restrictions, which have made him the most obvious potential challenger to Donald Trump for the next GOP presidential nomination, but also because of his proactive approach to climate change.
DeSantis' distinctly conservative approach to climate policy prioritizes adaptation measures like sea walls and big-ticket infrastructure projects over reducing the carbon emissions that cause global warming in the first place. His Resilient Florida program is distributing hundreds of millions of dollars in adaptation funds to Florida communities threatened by severe weather and flooding, all while studiously avoiding the term "climate change."
