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Hours after Hurricane Milton made landfall in the American state of Florida, a senior official from Greenpeace USA — an environment advocacy group — blamed giant conglomerates profiting from fossil fuel sales for the spate in natural disasters across the world.
“For the second time in as many weeks, lives will be lost and upended by yet another hurricane supercharged by fossil fuel-driven climate change. But while millions of people pick through the wreckage of their communities, the oil and gas companies responsible are banking billions while scrambling to dig up ever more climate-wrecking fossil fuels,” John Noël, Greenpeace USA Senior Climate Campaigner was quoted in a press statement issued on October 10.
It is well established in the climate literature that emissions from fossil fuel combustion lead to global warming and warming of the sea surface temperature. This rise in heat around seas leads to more intense extreme weather events such as cyclones or hurricanes, floods, erratic rainfall and droughts.
With damage from Hurricane Helene already estimated at a quarter of a trillion dollars ($250 billion) and Hurricane Milton unleashing havoc on Florida, this could be the most financially-challenging hurricane season in history.
“Ordinary people cannot be left to pick up the tab: with US elections just weeks away, presidential candidates should stop asking Big Oil for campaign donations and instead force them to pay for the climate damages devastating our communities,” Noël added.
Milton is the second hurricane to hit the state in two months. On September 26, Florida was hit by Hurricane Helene and the total economic cost arising from the humanitarian crisis created by that hurricane was estimated to be as high as $250 billion.
Meanwhile, the Greenpeace official also took a dig at the oil conglomerates, famously known as the ‘Big Oil’, for alleged intimidation of environmentalists.
“Rather than taking responsibility for their leading role in climate change, oil and gas majors such as Shell, Energy Transfer, ENI and TotalEnergies have resorted to intimidation lawsuits against member organisations in the Greenpeace network and other organisations who warn against the continued expansion of fossil fuels,” he said.
According to the press statement, the US federal government grants at least $20 billion in direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.
“Greenpeace is calling on governments to end these handouts and make big oil and gas polluters stop drilling and start paying for the climate damages people face around the world,” the statement mentioned.
On October 7, Milton reached its peak intensity of 290 km/hr (180 miles/hr), and 897 millibars of minimum pressure in its eye, making it the third strongest hurricane on record in the Atlantic Ocean.
Down To Earth previously reported that the western coast of Florida may get inundated by a storm surge of up to 15 feet, the highest being in the Tampa Bay Area, and experience hurricane force winds to what degree is currently unspecified. Both the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of Florida are under storm surge warnings.
The rainfall in many areas of Florida may be as high as 300 mm to 400 mm with localised rainfall going as high as 460 mm.