Donald Trump’s campaign stump speech routinely name-checks China as a foreign bogeyman that’s stealing American jobs and wealth. On Tuesday, the East Asian power slightly jabbed back at the GOP nominee.
According to Reuters, China’s top climate change negotiator criticized Trump’s pledge to shred the Paris Agreement — a pact was approved by more than 190 nations last year in an effort to reduce rising global temperatures.
“I believe a wise political leader should take policy stances that conform with global trends,” Xie Zhenhua told reporters, responding to a question about how his nation might work with a Trump administration on combating climate change.
Trump has previously alleged that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese government.
Zhenhua added of a potential GOP White House’s opposition to future climate talks: “If they resist this trend, I don’t think they’ll win the support of their people, and their country’s economic and social progress will also be affected.”
In September, both the US and China ratified the Paris Agreement.
To fulfill its obligations to reduce global warming, Beijing is preparing to launch a carbon trading system next year.
President Obama, meanwhile, has proposed the Clean Power Plan. The initiative would slash carbon outputs by nearly one-third by 2030 through emissions caps on new energy plants.
During a speech in September, Trump falsely claimed that the plan would “shut down most, if not all, coal-power electricity plants.”
Republican lawmakers, too, have worked tirelessly to kill the Clean Power Plant. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called on states earlier this year to ignore the pending regulations.
Twenty-four Republican states joined up with industry groups in a suit to block implementation of the Clean Power Plan, claiming it violated the Tenth Amendment of the constitution.
The legal action prompted the Supreme Court in February to halt enactment of the proposal until the suit has been resolved in the lower courts.
That process began in late September, when the DC Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the case against the Clean Power Plan. Ahead of the proceedings, an industry group known as the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity peppered the DC area with ads calling for a judgment against the initiative.
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