As heat rises, SC watches quietly. Will state suffer from lack of climate action?

After keeping a climate study secret for nearly two years, South Carolina’s wildlife agency publicly released the report in the spring of 2013 amid criticism that it had bottled up the information for political reasons.

The study called on the wildlife department to take a leadership role in addressing a variety of climate-related problems — ranging from the invasion of exotic wildlife to extensive flooding — that were expected as temperatures increase, rains fall harder and seas rise.

But the wildlife department report wasn’t the only study to call for action on climate in South Carolina. Five years earlier, a special task force appointed by Gov. Mark Sanford recommended more than 50 ways to stop rising greenhouse gas pollution from worsening global warming.

Today, those reports remain on the shelf in a state where residents are increasingly feeling the uncomfortable effects of climate change. Criticized by powerful electric utilities and political appointees, the studies never resulted in a comprehensive state climate strategy to guide South Carolina leaders as the globe warms.

Unlike North Carolina, South Carolina’s failure to develop a comprehensive climate plan means the state has no overall effort to cut greenhouse gas pollution, limit sprawl or educate the public on how to adapt to the changing climate. And while the state has made strides in encouraging the use of solar power, the future of solar expansion in South Carolina remains unresolved.

Why is this important? Powerful changes to the landscape are rippling across South Carolina.

Rising seas, in part the result of warmer water and melting glaciers, are flooding coastal property in Charleston and sending salty water farther up rivers near Georgetown, threatening to spread disease.

Four hurricanes and a major flood in the past five years, suspected to be linked to global warming, have swamped South Carolina, killing more than 30 people, pushing toxins into yards and causing billions of dollars in damage. Nichols, a tiny town in eastern South Carolina, has been flooded so frequently it resembles a ghost town.

Heavy rains, a sign of the earth’s changing climate, have flooded crops in rural communities at key harvest times, causing state financial bailouts to farmers. Between those times of intense precipitation, extended periods of dry weather have put a strain on groundwater that Aiken-area residents need for drinking.

At the same time, increasingly hot summers are making life miserable, if not outright dangerous, for inner city Columbia residents who can’t afford to run air conditioning.

“We are vulnerable,’’ said former Department of Natural Resources chief John Frampton, who was forced out as director more than a year before the wildlife agency’s climate report was finally released. “We happen to have one of the most valuable environmental habitats of any state on the East Coast. Absolutely we ought to be looking at that. Why not?’’

Hamilton Davis, a former energy director at the S.C. Coastal Conservation League, said South Carolina leaders aren’t thinking enough about addressing climate change on a broad-scale.

“We are not having that conversation in South Carolina today because there is no vision, no expectation that is driving this,’’ said Davis, now an executive with a solar energy company. “What we’re doing is a little bit ad hoc and kind of piecemeal.’’

Ideally, a climate action strategy would include two key components: a comprehensive initiative to cut greenhouse emissions and an effort to systematically respond to climate-related changes in South Carolina communities, said Trish Jerman, a former state Energy Office official who has tracked climate issues for more than 20 years.

Some question whether a small state like South Carolina could have much impact in reducing global greenhouse gas pollution that is causing the earth to warm. But boosters of a statewide plan say the effort would show leadership, and it would dovetail with efforts by other states to cut emissions.

For now, rather than attacking climate change head-on, South Carolina leaders are taking disjointed steps and often are reacting to the looming crisis, critics say.

In some cases, South Carolina leaders have even approved or pushed for rules that could encourage development along flood-prone beaches and rivers. Rollbacks in beachfront protection regulations are among them.

Meanwhile, at the local level, some cities that have attempted to address climate change are struggling to carry out their own climate plans without support from the state or federal governments.

Davis said the state should pay attention to North Carolina’s efforts.

North Carolina’s comprehensive climate strategy, put in place by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper about two years ago, includes goals to put thousands of zero emission vehicles on the road, reduce energy use in state offices, cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent below 2005 levels and brace for the effects of climate change in North Carolina communities. Cooper also formed a climate commission to make sure the comprehensive effort to address climate change stays on course.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican and booster of President Donald Trump, is cool to the idea of a statewide climate plan, saying it could create more bureaucracy.

“No, there isn’t any climate plan in South Carolina, but there also doesn’t need to be one,’’ McMaster spokesman Brian Symmes said. “It’s incumbent upon individuals, state agencies, and businesses to do what they can to be good stewards of the environment. Between regulations handed down by the feds, and the free market’s demand for businesses to be environmentally conscious, private industry is more than capable of adapting to a 21st century economy without imposing more regulations.”

McMaster’s office said the governor has done plenty. He recently signed a bill to help the solar industry, formed the state Floodwater Commission and supports investing $9.3 million in cleaner-running school buses and public buses, his supporters say. McMaster has proposed hiring a chief resilience officer, who would coordinate responses to “future crises as they arise.’’

Rising seas and dead trees

The way things looked 13 years ago, it appeared South Carolina was on track to develop an aggressive, statewide climate strategy. That’s when Gov. Sanford formed a 28-member commission to study how rising global temperatures were affecting the state — and what South Carolina could do about it.

Sanford, a maverick Republican and a moderate on environmental issues, said at the time he had seen the effects of climate change on his Beaufort County farm, where pine trees were dying from encroaching salt water and the roots of dead hardwood trees lay exposed in areas flooded by rising sea levels.

But the phenomenon wasn’t unique to his property, making it “very reasonable for us to study climate change and its possible impacts for South Carolina,’’ the governor said in an executive order that founded the climate committee.

The executive order said global warming could hurt the state’s economy and its quality of life, while costing the state government money.

Sanford then persuaded scientists, government officials, business people, farmers, politicians, utility executives and environmentalists to serve on his Climate, Energy and Commerce Advisory Committee.

The commission’s formation, however, drew almost immediate criticism from the influential state Chamber of Commerce, which said addressing climate change should be handled at the national level.

Then, as the commission began meeting regularly to discuss climate, it became increasingly evident that two of South Carolina’s biggest utilities, SCE&G and state-owned Santee Cooper, didn’t like the direction the committee was taking in addressing global warming, some committee members said. Eastern South Carolina’s Progress Energy, now a part of Duke Energy, also was uncomfortable with some of the discussions, records show.

Retired state Energy Office chief John Clark, a member of Sanford’s climate task force, said it was clear that utilities with seats on the committee didn’t want the state taking aggressive action on climate change.

“They actively opposed any requirements for utilities to incorporate renewable energy into the electric utility generation mix,’’ Clark said, noting that Duke Energy was the only utility willing to seriously discuss action.

Records obtained by The State show that utilities with representatives on Sanford’s climate commission favored using nuclear power over renewable energy to attack greenhouse gas pollution — a stance that later haunted SCE&G and Santee Cooper.

In 2017, the companies drew the public’s wrath for bungling the V.C. Summer nuclear construction project. The decision to quit the project, which followed years of raising rates to pay for two new reactors northwest of Columbia, ultimately led to the acquisition of a weakened SCE&G by Virginia utility giant Dominion Energy. The companies had spent $9 billion when they walked away.

In an Aug. 28, 2008, letter to climate committee chairman Ben Hagood, then a Republican state representative from Charleston, SCE&G chief executive Kevin Marsh said he could not endorse the entire climate study because some proposals “could have negative consequences for SCE&G’s customers and on South Carolina’s economic competitiveness.’’

Despite reticence by utilities, the climate committee eventually hammered out a report that called for reducing greenhouse gases in South Carolina by 5 percent below 1990 levels, a modest goal compared to other states. The goal could be achieved in South Carolina by the target date of 2020 if the state would adopt more than 50 different recommendations, the study said.

Sanford’s plan, however, never got very far in the Legislature because power companies let politicians know they were uncomfortable with it, Clark said.

Hagood, who retired from the Legislature the same year the Sanford climate report was released, said recommendations from the governor’s committee didn’t gain much traction with his colleagues or Sanford.

“I don’t think there was the political will to do much at the time,’’ he said.

Clark lays part of the blame on Sanford, who he said didn’t pound the table to get key recommendations approved by the Legislature.

“He went from being proactively supporting this to being neutral,’’ Clark said

Sanford said the climate task force was never intended to be the final say on climate.

The idea was to acknowledge the problem and begin discussing it “in the hope that, by doing so, more people will begin to address the obvious,’’ said Sanford, who also served in Congress and briefly challenged Trump for the 2020 Republican nomination for president.

Dominion Energy declined comment on past SCE&G participation in the Sanford climate panel. But the company said it is committed to addressing climate change with reduced carbon emissions. The company also said it has seen a substantial increase in solar power use in its South Carolina service territory.

Santee Cooper also declined comment on its participation in the Sanford committee and on whether the state needs an overall climate plan. The company did say it has closed two coal plants and plans to shutter a third one to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which should contribute to a 30 percent decrease in carbon dioxide pollution by Santee Cooper, as compared to 2015. The company says it has shifted its reliance on coal from 77% in 2008 to 46% today.

Dying on the vine

No state agency contacted by The State newspaper has been keeping track of whether any recommendations in the Sanford report have been adopted, but South Carolina has taken some steps that could help lower carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions.

The state has adopted two solar friendly laws since 2014 that industry boosters say have helped sun power grow in South Carolina. Energy efficiency also has become more of an emphasis in South Carolina since 2008 as the public has demanded ways to lower some of the nation’s highest electricity bills.

But the solar issue remains unresolved in South Carolina, with battles ahead over pricing that could determine whether solar lives or dies in the long-run. And many of the Sanford report’s cornerstone recommendations remain unaddressed by the S.C Legislature, former state Energy Office executives Clark and Jerman said.

Among those recommendations was a requirement that utilities rely on renewable energy to supply 5% of the power they generate and distribute. The proposal - called a renewable portfolio standard, or RPS - was similar to what has been required in other states, including North Carolina.

“North Carolina is one of the only states that has an RPS in the Southeast, but a lot of others — like us — have done more of a piecemeal approach,’’ said Tyson Grinstead, a government affairs representative of the Sunrun solar company. Grinstead said the solar industry is working to expand without a renewable portfolio standard, “but it would be a good thing if South Carolina wanted to do it.’’

Today, less than 1% of the energy produced in South Carolina comes from wind and solar, according to the S.C. Office of Regulatory Staff. Most renewable energy sources are from hydroelectric energy produced by dams, about 2.3%. In comparison, about 95% of the energy produced in South Carolina comes from coal, nuclear and natural gas.

One of the most important parts of the Sanford climate report was a recommendation that the state update the plan every five years. Jerman, the former energy office official, said that was never done.

Clark and fellow Sanford commission panel member Stephen Smith, director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said South Carolina could have met the goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels if state leaders had closely followed recommendations.

“You not only would have hit the target, you would have exceeded the target,’’ Smith said. “There is a certain momentum that takes hold in states that adopt these things.’’

South Carolina’s carbon dioxide emissions reached a 30-year peak in 2004, at 87 million metric tons, federal statistics show. Since that time, they have dropped to 69 million metric tons, in part because of federal efforts to cut greenhouse gas pollution and increased reliance on natural gas.

Still, carbon dioxide emissions in South Carolina have not dropped to 5 percent below 1990 levels, as recommended by the Sanford climate committee, according to statistics from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

South Carolina generates more carbon dioxide pollution than 23 states and roughly the same amount as countries such as Austria, Greece and Israel, according to the Center for Climate Strategies, a Washington, D.C., group that helped with the Sanford climate report.

By failing to embrace the climate report and keep it updated, the state has missed an opportunity to aggressively address climate change, the Southern Alliance’s Smith said. A comprehensive state climate strategy, like the one in North Carolina, is overdue, Smith said.

“You would set an aspirational target that is aligning the arrows of state government,” Smith said. “You look at what Roy Cooper’s doing, and there are so many departments and so many agencies (involved). If you can get the power of government in alignment, you can do a lot of good.’’

Swamp eels and politics

The 2013 Department of Natural Resources report, commissioned under then-agency chief Frampton, presented a chilling assessment about the looming effects of climate change on wildlife and the landscape.

Written by an 18-member study group that included biologists and veteran agency officials, the study said South Carolina should brace for an invasion of exotic wildlife and a loss of native species as temperatures warm and sea levels rise. Warmer temperatures would mean animals, such as Asian swamp eels and other non-native species that have taken hold in Florida, could migrate north to South Carolina, the study said. It warned that some species of fish would dwindle as oxygen levels declined and hotter seawater killed the tiny food sources they thrive on.

In addition to the effects on wildlife, the report warned that rising seas and increased flooding would cause troubles for people living along the coast and rivers of South Carolina. The predictions are similar to what’s happening in Charleston, Nichols and other areas today.

To tackle these and other future problems, the report said the Department of Natural Resources should take a lead role in educating the public about the threats of global warming and increase climate-related scientific research. It recommended acquiring land to protect habitat, adopting strategies to deal with the effects of climate change on agency properties, developing partnerships with other agencies and “leading by example.’’

But the draft study ran into trouble in the summer of 2011 that kept it out of the public eye for nearly two years — and likely chilled the agency’s enthusiasm for addressing climate change since that time.

At a board meeting in Edisto Beach, a remote coastal community well away from the spotlight of the agency’s Columbia headquarters, then-board members Caroline Rhodes and Cary Chastain took issue with the report’s findings.

“You don’t want to falsely build a case and scare people,’’ Chastain said during the meeting. He could not be reached for comment for this story.

Later that year, Rhodes — appointed as board chairman by Gov. Nikki Haley after Haley took office in 2011 — led the charge to oust Frampton as Department of Natural Resources director, which deep sixed the climate report. Haley had been elected on a pro-business agenda, raising questions about her commitment to environmental issues. Haley had nothing to do with Frampton’s departure, her office said at the time. But it was never clear why he was pushed out.

The report remained hidden, out of the public eye, until The State newspaper reported in 2013 that the study had not been released. The DNR then released the report and sought public comments.

Since then, the DNR has used some individual recommendations in the report, but it has not established a specific climate action plan, said Robert Boyles, the agency’s recently appointed director.

Cities go it alone

With state and federal guidance lacking, some South Carolina’s cities, including Columbia, have announced their own efforts to tackle climate change through plans to use more renewable energy and rely on cleaner burning cars and trucks. Some of the effort comes in response to President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord, an international effort to reduce greenhouse gas pollution that is driving up temperatures and causing sea level rise.

Columbia has established a goal of the city relying 100 percent on clean and renewable energy during the next 16 years.

Major initiatives tackled by the city include building a solar farm to help power Columbia’s wastewater treatment plant, one of the largest users of energy in the city. The city also is updating its water meter system, which will reduce leaks, and it has a systematic plan to take polluting, city-owned vehicles off the road.

But the city isn’t moving fast enough, say some people who are following the city’s efforts. Columbia hasn’t completed 42 of the 67 climate goals it has established, according to the city’s website.

“The pledge is not the hard thing,’’ said Penny Cothran, an organizer with the Sierra Club in South Carolina. “The hard thing is delivering on the pledge.’’

The city has plenty of work to do if it wants to reach the clean and renewable energy goal by 2036. Part of that is persuading Dominion Energy and state electric cooperatives to provide the clean and renewable energy Columbia wants, Cothran said.

University of South Carolina professor Lori Ziolkowski, chair of the city’s Climate Protection Action Committee, said that, overall, the city’s plan isn’t aggressive enough.

Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, a one-time president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said he’s pleased with the city’s efforts, particularly since little leadership on climate is occurring at the federal and state levels. The city is planning to roll out updates to its climate plan this month.

Many of the city’s climate goals are still underway, he said. One major effort is restoring a hydroelectric plant that was knocked out during a historic flood that swamped the city in 2015. When that work is completed, the hydro’s 10 megawatt production should be enough to provide energy for 10,000 homes, the mayor said.

Benjamin acknowledged Columbia still has challenges.

“There are a number of cities across the state that are doing some things, and across the country, but it’s difficult with a lack of state leadership or federal leadership,’’ Benjamin said, noting that “we’re not giving up.’’

Cothran, an organizer with the Sierra Club in South Carolina, said that while she’d like the city to move faster, Columbia’s efforts are appreciated. Columbia is the only city in South Carolina to commit to the Sierra Club’s “Ready for 100’’ campaign, the program to use 100 percent renewable energy by 2036, Cothran said.

Rising floodwater

Perhaps the closest things to active, statewide climate plans are the state’s energy plan and one produced in 2019 through Gov. McMaster’s office. But neither look comprehensively at a wide range of climate issues, critics say.

The governor’s Floodwater Commission report, compiled by a group that includes business people, university professors and state government officials, offers recommendations on how to control flooding caused by rising sea levels and more frequent storms. Among other things, the Floodwater Commission report says the state should protect wetlands, look for environmentally sensitive ways to keep salt marshes from eroding and protect power lines and electrical generating stations.

Critics say the report, which exceeds 600 pages, is heavy on background and also includes questionable recommendations.

The report doesn’t say much about other impacts from climate change, such as the threat of increasing forest fires, the advance of disease-carrying insects due to hot weather or how heat is affecting the poor. It also doesn’t focus on what South Carolina can do to reduce carbon emissions that are among the leading causes of climate change.

Chaired by a former hazardous waste industry lobbyist, the commission included recommendations in its report that would allow for an increase in development near lakes and rivers, instead of moving development away from potentially flood-prone areas.

The study says the state should consider establishing experimental artificial reefs to limit beach erosion, while building more lakes and channelizing rivers to attack flood problems. In one case, the study suggests developing a lake in rural Marion County, where the small community of Nichols is located.

“I certainly would not describe it as a plan addressing climate change, at all,’’ said Barry Beasley, a retired DNR biologist who is among a group of scientists critical of the Floodwater Commission report. “Climate change is a much bigger issue than flooding.’’

Note: This story was produced in collaboration with InsideClimate News.