A coalition of Florida mayors has pleaded for presidential candidates to be asked about climate change and sea level rises during forthcoming debates in Miami, fuelling criticism of the “ridiculous” lack of questions on the subjects in TV debates so far.

The group of 21 mayors, comprising Democrats and Republicans, has written to the moderators of the Democratic and Republican TV debates to argue it would be “unconscionable for these issues of grave concern for the people of Florida to not be addressed”.

The letter states that candidates should be asked about reductions to greenhouse gas emissions and investments in coastal infrastructure during the Miami debates. The Democratic debate, hosted by Univision and the Washington Post, will take place on Wednesday, with the Republican event, handled by CNN, Salem Radio and the Washington Times, held on Thursday.

The plea, issued from US cities acutely vulnerable to rising sea levels, follows mounting criticism of the lack of questions posed to candidates on climate change. In a televised Republican debate held just three days after the historic Paris climate deal, climate change was only mentioned once in passing by John Kasich, who argued that the summit should have been used to discuss terrorism instead.

“This is a critically important issue not just for the country but also for the world, but it isn’t even being debated,” said Jack Seiler, the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, who put his name to the letter. “Some of the topics raised in the debates are ridiculous – the personal attacks go back and forth for 20 minutes – but when you try to talk about about rising sea levels, it’s almost as if it’s too much of a mature topic for them.

“Our city is really ground zero for rising sea levels, so it’s frustrating to see this. I mean, I’d love there to be as much discussion about climate change as there is about Donald Trump’s hands. If they aren’t going to talk about it in Florida, when will they?”

During the course of the presidential race, the US has had its warmest year on record, California has been gripped by its worst drought in 1,200 years and scientists have warned of “profound effects” upon the entire Arctic ecosystem after the wilderness experienced a new low in peak ice extent. On Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the contiguous US had just had its warmest winter on record – 4.6F above the 20th century average.

However, while climate change has been discussed by Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders during debates, it has been virtually ignored by the leading Republican contenders. According to the League of Conservation Voters, there have been 14 climate questions posed to Republicans over 26 debates in the past nine months, amid an overall decline in TV news coverage of climate change over the past year.

Outside the debates, frontrunner Donald Trump has called climate science a “hoax” and “bullshit” and previously claimed “global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive”. He has since said the comments about a Chinese conspiracy were a “joke”.

Texas senator Ted Cruz said last year that “climate change is not a science, it’s religion” and that people who challenge it are treated as “blasphemers”. Cruz contends there has been no global warming for the past 17 years.

Meanwhile, Marco Rubio, the Florida senator, has been a target of mayors in the state over his stance on climate change. Although Rubio has said he accepts the science that the world is warming, he has warned against any major action in response, pointing out that “America is not a planet”. OKasich, the governor of Ohio, has also said he accepts mainstream climate science, a position he recently admitted is “apostasy” within the Republican party.

According to Nasa, average global sea levels have risen by 8in (20cm) since 1870. This increase isn’t uniform around the world, however, and low-lying areas of Florida are vulnerable to a buildup of water along the eastern seaboard of the US. Over the past 20 years, sea levels around the Miami coast, where 2.4 million people live within 4ft of the high tide line, have risen by 3.7 inches.

“Some people get swept into office. I floated into office,” said Philip Levine, mayor of Miami Beach, whose election campaign video featured himself in a canoe with a dog as he navigated flooded streets of the resort city.

Levine said the city has spent $100m raising the roads, installing new water pumps and reinforcing sea walls in a bid to curb the regular flooding of the western part of Miami Beach. High tides, known as “king tides”, can inundate streets in Miami Beach when exacerbated by winds.

“We had areas that were flooding significantly, and we need another $300m to make our city resilient,” Levine said. “If you don’t have a solution in sight, it doesn’t bode well for anyone. We need both parties to work on this – the rising seas aren’t Democratic or Republican. This should be a bipartisan issue.

“We have a Florida senator in Marco Rubio that has done nothing to help. He hasn’t responded to a letter, he hasn’t raised it in the senate, he doesn’t believe it’s a problem. It comes down to special interests, the oil, gas and fossil fuel industries, that are funding his campaign. So he puts his head in the sand as we experience regular flooding.”

CNN and Univision did not respond to an inquiry on whether climate change questions will be asked during the debates.