Trump's UN ambassador pick said she supports "both sides" of climate science

Kelly Knight Craft, the current U.S. ambassador to Canada and President Trump's nominee for ambassador to the UN, endorsed "both sides of the science" when asked about climate change in a 2017 interview with CBC Politics.

Why it matters: If confirmed by the Senate, Craft will represent U.S. interests at the UN, which recognizes climate change as a "potentially irreversible threat to human societies," per the Paris climate agreement. In October, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that the effects of global warming are already evident worldwide, as did a U.S. panel in November. The vast majority of climate scientists have concluded that recent climate change is primarily driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases.

• Note: Trump announced plans to pull out of the Paris agreement in 2017.

The big picture: Craft and her husband — the billionaire CEO of the third largest coal-producing company in the eastern U.S. — are longstanding Republican donors and frequent premium guests at Trump's D.C. hotel, according a 2018 VIP guest list obtained by the Washington Post. The Crafts were named gold-level members of the Trump Card rewards program for a 3-day stay.

Go deeper:

• Trump's proposed climate panel would include prominent skeptic
• Government agency ignored constitutional issues over Trump's D.C. hotel