Beijing has told Donald Trump that climate change is not a hoax that was created by China, reminding the president-elect that it was his Republican predecessors who first put the issue on the table.

Mr Trump’s views on global warming have raised concerns among environmentalists, given that he is seen as a climate change denier.

In 2012, he tweeted: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”