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Campaigners have reacted with alarm to the choice of climate denier and Ohio senator JD Vance as Donald Trump’s vice-presidential candidate, with activists warning he represents a “dangerous” vote for the US.
Mr. Vance, a supporter of the oil and gas industry and opponent of renewable energy, was announced as Trump’s running mate on Monday.
Although he previously acknowledged the climate crisis, Mr. Vance now strongly supports the fossil fuel industry, which is a major financial contributor to his campaign.
His official nomination as the Republican vice presidential candidate was met with a strong reaction from climate groups.
Activist group Climate Defiance responded with a thread on X saying it was committed to fighting “climate criminals” and shared an undated video of protesters attending a fundraising dinner for Mr Vance’s campaign.
“JD Vance hates you and hates your children. He is ready and willing to destroy democracy and the torch of the planet. His only principle is force. We must stop him. and. We. Will,” wrote the group on X.
The Independent JD Vance has been reached for comment on this story.
Mr. Vance’s views on the climate crisis have changed over time, in many ways he has changed his stance on Mr. Trump himself.
By 2020, he said he wants to take Ohio to a “clean energy future” by ditching oil. “We have a climate problem in our society,” he said in a speech at Ohio State University.
His tone has changed dramatically just two years later, when he sought Mr Trump’s support for the senate race.
“I’m skeptical of the idea that climate change is caused by humans,” Mr. Vance said at the American Leadership Forum in 2022.
He claimed that year that the climate had been “changing for millennia” and denied the pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels was responsible. It has been scientifically proven for decades that energy-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, released by the burning of fossil fuels, are causing the climate crisis.
Ohio gets most of its energy from burning oil and gas, with cleaner sources like wind and solar making up just 4 percent. Since becoming Ohio’s junior senator, Mr. Vance has introduced legislation to repeal federal tax credits for electric vehicles.
“Like Donald Trump, JD Vance has proven that he will make rolling back climate protection a top priority while responding to the demands of oil and gas CEOs,” Sunrise Movement communications director Stevie O’Hanlon said in a statement.
“Vance is one of the largest recipients of donations in Congress from oil companies.
“JD Vance will sell to the highest bidder, whether it’s Trump or the fossil fuel industry. That makes him dangerous,” he said.
Jamie Henn, climate activist and founder and director of Fossil Free Media, a non-profit media lab, wrote in X: “JD Vance is not a climate denier, he is a climate liar.
“Before he took office, he talked about the climate as a threat. Then he took $350,000 from Big Oil, drank the MAGA kool-aid, and now lies about clean energy and climate.
Climate power En Accion, a campaign group focused on mobilizing Latinos on climate action, wrote in a statement that as a denial of climate change and the beneficiary of major donations from big oil, Mr. Vance is “a dream come true for Trump and the oil industry.”.
“JD Vance is a perfect example of extreme climate change denialism and big oil interests pitting themselves against the well-being of working families and communities of color.
“His actions as a government official have focused on undoing President Biden’s clean energy achievement, which has been critical in creating 300,000 jobs, with more than 40 percent of those jobs, totaling 127,910, created in low-income communities,” he said. the statement said, adding that “priority of corporate profits over the needs of voters, thus undermining efforts to build a sustainable future for all”.
Climate groups have warned of the climate costs of another Trump presidency. Despite the US experiencing record-breaking heat waves and frequent hurricanes, Mr Trump has not changed his stance on the growing threat of the crisis.
Asked what he would do to tackle the climate crisis in the first presidential debate last month, the former president initially balked.
When the Dana Bash moderator asked again, the former president said: “I want clean water and clean air.”
Mr Trump has previously called the climate crisis a “hoax” and summed up his energy policy with the slogan, “Drill, baby, drill.”
He also formally withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, an international agreement to limit global temperature increases to 2C, in November 2020 when he became president. Mr. Biden has since rejoined the agreement.
Nearly 90 percent of Americans have experienced an extreme weather event in the past five years, according to a 2023 survey by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.
Another Trump administration could add four billion metric tons to US greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to a second Biden term, according to an analysis published in March by Carbon Brief.
The analysis warned that if Mr Trump gets a second term, the US will “very likely miss its global climate pledges” by a wide margin.
“Donald Trump is the worst president for the climate in US history. JD Vance will empower Donald Trump to do even worse damage to our planet during his second Trump administration,” said Ms O’Hanlon.
“Among the countless reasons that Trump and Vance should not be elected to lead our country, the duo is an existential threat to the future of a livable climate for all Americans and people around the globe,” said Food & Water Watch deputy action director Mitch Jones. .
Biden referenced the climate when he described Mr. Vance as “a clone of Trump on issues” as he boarded Air Force One for a trip to Las Vegas.
“JD Vance has implemented the same policy … saying there is no climate change. I mean, he signed the Trump agenda,” Mr. Biden said in an interview with NBC.
