A massive storm, Hurricane Helene, made even larger and more destructive by superheated ocean temperatures caused by climate change, will hit Florida on Thursday. The magnitude of this storm (and similar storms) is, in part, the inevitable result of the nihilistic and irresponsible climate policies of former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. The fallout will bring billions of dollars in new disaster costs to the already beleaguered Sunshine State and should remind voters late in the campaign that crucial public safety and economic issues related to climate policy are on the ballot this November.

The difference between the two candidates on climate policy could not be more dramatic. Vice President Kamala Harris has made climate protection a centerpiece of her energy and economic policies. As she noted this week: “Our young leaders have grown up knowing only the climate crisis. They understand what is at stake for their future. As President, I will address the climate crisis with bold action, building a clean energy economy, advancing environmental justice and increasing resilience to climate disasters.”

In contrast, Trump as president has rolled back all possible climate protection measures. In fact, Trump has made attacking the Biden-Harris administration’s climate action the focus of his 2024 campaign. He called fast-growing, low-cost, domestic renewable energy in the U.S. a “fraud” and ignored the urgent need to limit emissions. Instead, he proposes a deliberate doubling of the fossil fuel economy and demands a billion dollars in contributions from the oil industry in return for the expansion of fossil fuels. Trump continues to falsely question established climate science and has vowed to repeal the successful new Biden-Harris climate and clean energy programs.

Meanwhile, the economic costs of climate change continue to negatively impact Americans and continue to grow. Three-fifths of Americans now report that the impacts and costs of climate change are affecting their quality of life, public safety, health or family finances. Last year alone, the United States experienced a record 28 individual weather disasters worth billions of dollars, the severity of which was caused by record-high temperatures. More than $800 billion in additional U.S. healthcare costs each year are due to climate and pollution. A new Senate report finds that flooding exacerbated by climate change is costing Americans between $180 billion and $500 billion each year. Hundreds of thousands of homeowners, including in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, are being left out of insurance because insurers either refuse to provide any coverage or because they have increased premiums because of climate change costs.

Climate change is leading to unprecedentedly high temperatures in the Atlantic and Caribbean, which have been at record levels for over a year. Such exceptionally hot oceans, which reached 100 degrees last year off the coast of Key West, have become 200 to 500 times more likely compared to the pre-industrial era due to climate change, according to Climate Central, a leading science nonprofit group. Warmer water means much bigger, wetter and more destructive hurricanes.

Just this week, President Joe Biden gave a major speech highlighting the climate successes of the last four years. Biden and Harris have repeatedly warned that unless we lead the world in reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next two decades, the consequences of heat waves, massive wildfires, record flooding and massive storms will only get worse.

But since Trump first became a presidential candidate in 2016, the Republican Party has backtracked on climate policy as he punishes those in the Republican Party who dare question his climate nihilism. For example, not a single Republican in Congress voted for the landmark Inflation Reduction Act legislation, which has led to hundreds of billions of dollars in new private investment in clean energy in the last two years alone.

Although all Republicans voted against the IRA, it appears that red states benefit more from these new investments than blue states. So now at least 18 Republican members of Congress say they want to keep the IRA. But not Trump. If elected, he has vowed to repeal the IRA through Congress and roll back regulations based on it through the executive branch.

Hurricane Helene is a brutal and expensive reminder that climate change is already imposing enormous costs on the U.S. economy and the lives of average Americans. And worse consequences lie ahead if we don’t dramatically reduce emissions and convince the rest of the world to do the same. Harris recognizes this clear and present danger and is determined to protect Americans from the worst climate disaster. But Trump doesn’t seem to care at all.

Paul Bledsoe is a lecturer at the Center for Environmental Policy at American University. Under former President Bill Clinton, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, the Department of the Interior, and the White House Climate Change Task Force.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.