No, we didn’t invent climate change. That was the message that China had for President-elect Donald Trump, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Trump had tweeted in 2012 that global warming “was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” He has also has previously called it a “hoax.”
When Hillary Clinton pointed out Trump’s quote during the presidential debates, the Republican outright lied: “I did not say that, I did not say that.” He did say that.
But China has helpfully clarified the record for Trump. Speaking at United Nations talks on Wednesday in Marrakech, Morocco, China’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin explained to the incoming president that his country couldn’t have invented climate change as a hoax because it was the United States that initiated climate change talks via the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change before China was even invited to that club.
“If you look at the history of climate change negotiations, actually it was initiated by the IPCC with the support of the Republicans during the Reagan and senior Bush administration during the late 1980s,” Liu told reporters during an hourlong briefing.
As USA Today noted, Trump has said his comment about climate change being a Chinese hoax was a “joke.” China apparently didn’t get it.
Trump campaigned on pulling the United States out of the landmark Paris climate accords. Liu said China was committed to combating climate change “whatever the circumstances.”
