Nancy Pelosi and California governor Gavin Newsom have both come under fire for attending the wedding of a Getty heiress days before Cop26 in Glasgow comes to a close.
The Democratic Speaker of the House officiated at the wedding of Ivy Getty, the great granddaughter of oil tycoon J Paul Getty, in recent days. Mr Newsom, meanwhile, was attending.
The ceremony was held at City Hall in San Francisco and pictures fromVogue appeared to show fellow Democrats Mr Newsom and the mayor of San Fancisco, London Breed, in attendance.
Although it remains unclear what day the wedding was held, photographs and details of the wedding suggested it was an opulent affair, featuring designer dresses for bridesmaids and decorations with gold-lace.
Ms Pelosi came under attack for attending and officiating the wedding of the Getty heiress on Twitter, which was within days of her visit to the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
“Pelosi officiating an Oil Baron’s billionaire granddaughter excess wedding during a pandemic that economically devastated the working class is peak why Democrats will lose the next 4 election cycles,” argued one Twitter user.
The Twitter account for the youth caucus of the US Green Party, Young EcoSocialists, meanwhile compared two images of Ms Pelosi at Glasgow and at the Getty wedding.
“I can not think of a better example of the current state of affairs these photos being a day apart,” the caucus tweeted. “Nancy Pelosi Officiating the Heiress of an Oil Tycoon [and] Nancy Pelosi at COP26 lecturing about climate”.
Mr Newsom had been due to attend Cop26 as part of the US delegation to the climate summit, but did not do so because of “family obligations”, according to a statement released at the time.
He said in a following statement on Tuesday that his children “had an intervention” and begged him not to attend Cop26, as Politico reported. The decision was still attacked on social media, however.
One Twitter user wrote: “Gavin Newsom cancelled a press conference to attend the wedding of Ivy Getty (Big Oil). Nancy Pelosi was an officiant at the Getty wedding. Isn’t it weird that Green New Deal/Climate Activists would go to the wedding of an oil heiress?”
The Getty family are estimated to be worth around $5.4bn (£3.9bn) according to Forbes — most of which is down to oil trading in the 1960s and 1970s.
Oil drilling will need to dramatically reduce if the United States is to meet its obligations on reducing fossil fuels, which were set out ahead of Cop26, and obliged to meet under the 2015 Paris Agreement to keep global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
A number of Twitter users and right-wing commentators also attacked Ms Pelosi and Mr Newsom for attending a wedding where guests were pictured not wearing masks, although according to Vogue all attendees had to have proof of being vaccinated against Co and weddings are allowed in San Francisco with restrictions.
The Independent has approach both Ms Pelosi’s and Mr Newsom’s offices for comment.
This article was amended on 9 May 2022. It previously referred to London Breed as the mayor of Chicago, but she is the mayor of San Francisco.
