Story highlights
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said that humans have some impact on climate change
That stance contrasts with his running mate Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump
Donald Trump and his running mate appeared to be on different pages Tuesday on whether climate change is man made.
Roughly an hour after Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said the real estate mogul does not believe global warming is a man-made phenomenon, GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence appeared to take the opposite view.
“Well, look, there’s no question that the activities that take place in this country and in countries around the world have some impact on the environment and some impact on climate,” Pence said during an appearance with host Chris Cuomo on CNN’s “New Day.”
Clinton puts Trump on defense at first debate
But during her own appearance on the program earlier Tuesday morning, Conway said Trump “believes that global warming is naturally occurring,” and confirmed the candidate does not believe it is man made.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
There is near universal consensus in the scientific community that climate change is man made.
Conway and Pence were both asked to clarify the campaign’s position on the issue following Monday night’s debate, when Hillary Clinton accused Trump of believing that climate change “a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.”
Trump flatly denied that, even though he has called climate change a “hoax” repeatedly in the past. In a tweet from 2012, for example, Trump said that the “concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Trump later claimed he was only joking.
In his interview on Tuesday, Pence dismissed that tweet as “humorous,” and said that he and Trump are opposed to certain environmental policies.
“What Donald Trump said was a hoax is that bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., can control the climate of the earth and the reality is that this climate change agenda that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to continue to expand is killing jobs in this country,” he said.
Pence faced another question about a conflicting position on the GOP ticket when he was asked about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, trade legislation he initially supported but that Trump has longed opposed.
“I wholly agree with Donald Trump’s view about TPP,” Pence said.