Trump's new ambassador to Canada says she 'respects both sides of climate science'

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Louise Thomas

Editor

The US’s new ambassador to Canada has said she “respects both sides of climate science”.

Kelly Craft, who began her role this week, said she appreciated all of the scientific evidence on climate change.

“I think that both sides have their own results, from their studies, and I appreciate and I respect both sides of the science,” Ms Craft told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBS).

Ms Craft's husband, coal mogul Joe Craft, has criticised the climate change policies of former US President Barack Obama.

Comments from Mr Trump over the past seven years show he has long dismissed scientific evidence that climate change is occurring. And earlier this year, senior administration officials repeatedly sidestepped questions from reporters about whether the President believed in man-made climate change.

Nikki Haley, the US's ambassador to the United Nations, also faced the question.

“The president believes the climate is changing, and he does know that pollutants are a part of that equation,” she told CBS in June.

In May, Mr Trump made the controversial decision to withdraw the US from the landmark Paris accord, drawing expressions of disappointment from several world leaders, including Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The US and Syria are now the only two nations that are not included in the pact, which aims to reduce greenhouse gases and slow the rise of global temperatures.

Ms Craft told CBS that while Mr Trump's approach to climate change is different from the government of Canada's, both the US and Canada have the same goal: to “better our environment and to maintain the environment.”