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Activists are alarmed by the selection of climate change denier and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as President Donald Trump’s running mate, warning that he represents a “dangerous” voice for the United States.
Vance, a strong supporter of the oil and gas industry and opponent of renewable energy, was announced as Trump’s running mate on Monday.
Despite previously acknowledging the climate crisis, Vance is now a staunch supporter of the fossil fuel industry, which heavily funds his campaign.
His formal nomination as the Republican vice presidential candidate was met with strong backlash from climate change groups.
Activist group Climate Defiance responded in a thread on X, pledging to fight “climate criminals” and sharing an undated video of protesters storming a fundraising dinner for Vance’s campaign.
“J.D. Vance hates you and hates your children. He is ready to destroy democracy and burn the planet. His only belief is power. We must stop him. And we will,” the group wrote to X.
Independent We’ve reached out to JD Vance for comment on this matter.
Vance’s views on the climate crisis have evolved over time, just as his stance on Trump himself has.
As recently as 2020, he said he wanted to move Ohio away from oil and into a “clean energy future.” “We have a climate problem in our society,” he said in a speech at Ohio State University.
But just two years later, when he was soliciting Trump’s support for his Senate run, his tone changed dramatically.
“I’m skeptical of the idea that climate change is purely human-driven,” Vance says. Speaking at the American Leadership Forum 2022.
That year, he argued that the climate has “been changing for thousands of years” and denied that pollution from fossil fuel burning was the cause, even though scientific evidence for decades has shown that greenhouse gases released by burning fossil fuels and that trap energy in the atmosphere are causing the climate crisis.
Ohio gets most of its energy from burning oil and gas, with only 4% coming from cleaner sources like wind and solar. Since joining the Ohio House of Representatives, Vance has introduced legislation to repeal the federal tax credit for electric vehicles.
“Like Donald Trump, J.D. Vance has proven he will make rolling back climate protections a top priority while catering to the demands of oil and gas CEOs,” Stevie O’Hanlon, communications director for the Sunrise Movement, said in a statement.
“Vance is one of the largest recipients of oil company donations to Congress.
“J.D. Vance will sell out to the highest bidder, whether that’s Trump or the fossil fuel industry, and that’s what makes him dangerous,” she said.
Jamie Henn, a climate activist and founder and director of the nonprofit media lab Fossil Free Media, wrote on X: “JD Vance is not a climate denier, he’s a climate liar.
“Before he ran for president, he said the climate was a threat. Then he took $350,000 from Big Oil, pandered to MAGA, and now he’s lying about clean energy and the climate.”
Climate Power en Acción, a campaign group focused on mobilizing Latinos on climate change, said in a statement that Vance, a climate change denier and a major beneficiary of donations from Big Oil, is “a dream come true for President Trump and the oil industry.”
“J.D. Vance is a perfect example of how extreme climate denial and big oil profits work against the well-being of working families and communities of color.
“His actions as a senior administration official have been focused on undermining President Biden’s clean energy achievements, which were crucial to the creation of 300,000 jobs, more than 40 percent of which – a total of 127,910 – were created in low-income communities,” the statement said, adding: “He has put corporate profits above the needs of his constituents, undermining efforts to build a sustainable future for all.”
Climate groups have already been warning about the climate impacts of a second Trump presidency, and he has not backed down from the growing threat of the crisis, even as the US is hit by record heatwaves and frequent hurricanes.
Asked what he would do to address the climate crisis during the first presidential debate last month, the former president initially dodged the question.
When host Dana Bash asked again, the former president replied, “I want totally clean water and totally clean air.”
Trump has previously called the climate crisis a “hoax” and summed up his energy policy with the slogan “Drill, dig, dig.”
During his presidency, Biden formally withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, an international pact aimed at limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, in November 2020. Biden later rejoined the accord.
A 2023 survey found that about 90% of Americans experienced extreme weather events in the past five years. National Opinion Research Center At the University of Chicago.
A second Trump administration could lead to four billion more tonnes of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared with a second term for the Biden administration, a research firm said. An analysis published by Carbon Brief in March.
The analysis warned that if Trump secures a second term, the US “will likely fall short significantly of its climate pledges.”
“Donald Trump has been the worst climate change president in American history, and J.D. Vance will give Donald Trump the authority to inflict even more damage on the planet in a second Trump administration,” O’Hanlon said.
“There are a myriad of reasons why Trump and Vance should not be elected to lead our nation, but they both pose an existential threat to a livable climate future for Americans and people around the world,” said Mitch Jones, deputy campaign director at Food & Water Watch.
Speaking on climate change while boarding Air Force One for his flight to Las Vegas, Biden described Vance as a “Trump clone on issues.”
“J.D. Vance has the same platform. He says climate change isn’t happening. So he’s aligned with Trump’s platform,” Biden said in an interview with NBC.
