President Donald Trump's pick for ambassador to the United Nations promised Wednesday to allow climate diplomacy to move forward despite her family's fortune in coal.
Kelly Craft, at a Senate hearing to confirm her for the high-profile post that has been vacant for nearly half a year, said she would not participate personally in discussions at the United Nations in which coal is discussed.
"I will give you my commitment that where coal is part of the conversation within climate change at the UN, I will recuse myself," she told Democratic Senator Ed Markey, a leading environmentalist.
"I understand that this is an issue that needs to be addressed. I also understand that fossil fuels has played a part in climate change," she said.
But she showed no daylight with Trump on his decision to pull the United States out of the UN-backed Paris climate accord, which covers virtually every other country, saying: "We don't have to be part of an agreement to be leaders."
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