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Campaigners are responding with alarm to the selection of climate denier and Ohio senator JD Vance as Donald Trump’s vice presidential nominee, with activists warning he represents a “dangerous” voice for the US.
Mr Vance, a staunch supporter of the oil and gas industry and an opponent of renewable energy, was announced as Mr Trump’s vice-presidential candidate on Monday.
Despite previously acknowledging the climate crisis, Mr Vance now strongly supports the fossil fuel industry, a major financial contributor to his campaign.
His formal nomination as the Republican vice presidential candidate was met with strong reactions from climate groups.
The activist group Climate Defiance responded with a thread on X saying it was committed to fighting against “climate criminals” and shared an undated video of its protesters breaking into a fundraising dinner for Mr Vance’s campaign.
“JD Vance hates you and hates your children. He is ready and willing to tear down democracy and torch the planet. His only principle is power. We must stop him. And. We. Will,” the group wrote on X.
The Independent has reached out to JD Vance for comment on this story.
Mr Vance’s views on the climate crisis have evolved over time, much in the way he has changed his stance on Mr Trump himself.
As recently as 2020 he said he wanted 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 had changed dramatically just two years later, however, when he was seeking support from Mr Trump for his senate race.
“I’m sceptical of the idea that climate change is caused purely by man,” Mr Vance told the American Leadership Forum in 2022.
He claimed that year that the climate has been “changing for millennia” and denied that pollution caused by burning fossil fuels was responsible. It has been scientifically proven over many decades that greenhouse gases trapping energy in the atmosphere, released by burning 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 only accounting for 4 per cent. 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 it a top priority to roll back climate protections while answering to the demands of oil and gas CEOs,” Sunrise Movement communications director Stevie O’Hanlon said in a statement.
“Vance is one of Congress’ biggest recipients of donations from oil companies.
“JD Vance will sell out to the highest bidder, whether that’s Trump or the fossil fuel industry. That makes him dangerous,” she said.
Jamie Henn, climate activist and founder and director of Fossil Free Media, a nonprofit media lab, wrote on X: “JD Vance isn’t a climate denier, he’s a climate liar.
“Before he ran for office, he talked about climate as a threat. Then he took $350,000 from Big Oil, drank the MAGA kool-aid, and now lies through his teeth about clean energy and climate.”
Climate power En Accion, a campaign group focused on mobilising Latinos on climate action, wrote in a statement that as a climate change denier and a major beneficiary of donations from big oil, Mr Vance is a “dream come true for Trump and the oil industry”.
“JD Vance is a perfect example of how extreme climate change denial and the interests of big oil go against the well-being of working families and communities of colour.
“His actions as a government official have focused on undoing President Biden’s clean energy achievements, which have been crucial in creating 300,000 jobs, with more than 40 per cent of these jobs, a total of 127,910, created in low-income communities,” the statement said, adding that he “prioritises corporate profits over the needs of voters, thereby undermining efforts to build a sustainable future for all”.
Climate groups had already been warning about the climate cost of another Trump presidency. Despite the US suffering from record-breaking heatwaves and frequent hurricanes, Mr Trump has not changed his stance on the mounting threat the crisis poses.
Asked what he would do to deal with the climate crisis at the first presidential debate last month, the former president initially deflected.
When moderator Dana Bash asked him again, the former president said: “I want absolutely immaculate clean water and absolutely clean air.”
Mr Trump previously called the climate crisis a “hoax” and summarised his energy policy with the slogan, “Drill, baby, drill.”
He also formally withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, an international deal to limit the rise in global temperatures to 2C, in November 2020 when he was the president. Mr Biden has since rejoined the agreement.
Nearly 90 per cent of Americans faced an extreme weather event in the last 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 tonnes 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 secured a second term, the US would “very likely miss its global climate pledge” by a wide margin.
“Donald Trump was the worst president for climate in US history. JD Vance will empower Donald Trump to enact even worse damage on our planet in a second Trump administration,” Ms O’Hanlon said.
“Among the countless reasons that Trump and Vance shouldn’t be elected to lead our country, the duo represents an existential threat to a livable climate future for all Americans and people around the globe,” Food & Water Watch action deputy director Mitch Jones said.
Mr Biden referenced climate when he described Mr Vance as a “clone of Trump on the issues”as he boarded Air Force One for a trip to Las Vegas.
“JD Vance has adopted the same policies… he says there’s no climate change happening. I mean, he signed on to the Trump agenda,” said Mr Biden in an interview with NBC.
