NEW YORK (Bloomberg) - Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka has met with Al Gore to discuss an issue her father has long scoffed at: global warming.

Following the meeting, the US President-elect himself met with the former Vice President, an environmental activist who has devoted years to fighting climate change,

Gore told reporters. "I had a lengthy and very productive session with the president-elect."

Although Gore met earlier with Trump's daughter, he said he had spent the bulk of his time with Trump.

"It was a sincere search for areas of common ground. ... I found it an extremely interesting conversation and, to be continued."

Both meetings took place at Trump Tower.

Ivanka Trump, who has a fashion line and helps run her father's real estate business, may be the closest thing to a climate advocate in Trump's inner circle. She plans to make global warming one of her key issues once he takes office, according to Politico.

She holds no official position on her father's transition team, which includes several members who question the basic science behind global warming.

The head of Trump's Environmental Protection Agency transition team, Myron Ebell, is an outspoken climate-change sceptic, and the president-elect's NASA adviser Bob Walker told the Guardian that he would do away with funding for climate research.

Donald Trump's perhaps most famous statement on climate change came in a 2012 tweet saying that it was "created" by the Chinese to make US manufacturing less competitive.

He shifted his tone somewhat last month during a meeting with the New York Times, saying there might be some "connectivity" between human activity and the rising temperatures that are melting polar ice caps and have been linked to extreme weather around the world.

Trump's incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus later clarified the statement on Fox News, saying the president-elect still believes global warming is mostly "a bunch of bunk".