The 2025 Hawaii Legislature’s opening day is Wednesday, but consider the session already begun, as Gov. Josh Green has a big-ticket package of requests for funding and legislation in the queue. Among them: another go at reserving a dedicated fund to pay for disaster response, infrastructure needs and environmental repair, pressing needs that have been grievously shunted aside in the past.
The difference this year is that climate change and related environmental disasters are “in your face” — intensifying and increasingly damaging, in Hawaii and worldwide, and will remain so. Disasters once thought inconceivable — such as the roaring fires that disastrously swept across portions of Los Angeles just days ago, and the drought- and storm-propelled fire that destroyed Lahaina in 2023 — make it impossible to ignore the intensifying threats.
This year, the Legislature must act, for the good of these islands — and because the cost of inaction could be immeasurable. Delaying action will not only cost more over time, it would also be an irresponsible abandonment of Hawaii’s people and environment to the risk of potential damage that can never be recovered.
Throughout the islands, structures are collapsing into the ocean; nearshore cesspools are being undermined, along with roadways and bridges, pipelines and utility corridors. Hotter, dryer weather is pumping up the vulnerability of Hawaii’s palms to coconut rhinoceros beetles, and causing mosquitoes carrying deadly avian malaria to infiltrate the mauka habitats of endangered, endemic Hawaii honeycreepers. Already eroded by deforestation, livestock overgrazing and plantation plowing, then overrun by invasive grasses and invasive pigs, deer and sheep, swaths of lands both mauka and makai are disintegrating and pouring polluted silt into the oceans. That destroys coral reefs and fisheries, and leaves coastlines more vulnerable to storm surge.
Response to these massive challenges has pushed forward in incremental ways over the years, but the failure to set up a coordinated, determined response — worked between state and counties — has already exposed us to preventable disaster, as Lahaina tragically illustrates.
This year, however, a set of commendable proposals from the state’s Climate Advisory Team (CAT) offers a way, or more properly, multiple ways forward. Formed by Gov. Green last May, the volunteer group has moved with relative lightning speed to investigate and set out actions that would increase resilience and safety in the face of climate change. Those recommendations were released last week, and they set out the Green administration’s legislative priorities for climate-related action, this year and beyond.
The team’s recommendations call for state sourcing of about $1.9 billion over five years for natural disaster prevention and response. (For comparison, the state Department of Education has proposed an operating budget of $2.3 billion for 2005-2007.) Immediate financing and policy changes are essential, CAT advises.
In support, CAT presents findings that show 71% of islanders believe a disaster comparable to that in Lahaina is possible in their own communities, but only 39% think their community is prepared. It presents evidence that the frequency and severity of disasters is increasing, in Hawaii and beyond.
Perhaps most persuasively, for those who seek hard numbers to justify state spending, CAT forecasts that in coming years, devastating fires, catastrophically flooded coasts, destructive, unpredictable hurricanes — and earthquakes — will cost Hawaii $1.4 billion annually in losses without preparatory action.
It’s no stretch: The cost of rebuilding from the Lahaina fire has been estimated at $5.5 billion, and while a lion’s share of that cost has been shouldered by the U.S. government so far, changing national priorities and breakout needs throughout the country make it unrealistic to assume that the same level of aid to Hawaii will follow a future catastrophe.
To stall on taking action now will be more costly than to prepare for future eventualities. As Green stated, “Hawaii cannot afford to wait.”
The Legislature must act to support three of CAT’s recommendations: establish a Hawaii Climate Resilience Fund; set aside disaster recovery funds; and expand the new state Fire Marshal Office and related programs, like Firewise.
Several potential methods to generate funding are offered, including: “scraping” interest from the state’s Rainy Day Fund, which could generate $66 million annually; increasing the statewide transient accommodations tax; setting up an “environmental stewardship fee”; and an additional oil barrel tax. Green and CAT both suggest private corporate and philanthropic contributions can also be solicited.
This year’s Legislature must choose among these funding methods, moving past expected objections from powerful sector interests to move the state forward. To do less is to jeopardize lives and Hawaii’s economic future, as CAT’s chair, former Alexander &Baldwin CEO Chris Benjamin, warns.
