Biden has an ambiguous record on climate policy, at best. His campaign in general has leaned hard on his time in the Obama administration, and his commitment in particular to the Paris Agreement. Biden has boasted of and been credited with having played a major role in negotiating the global climate pact while serving as vice president in the “Obama-Biden administration,” claiming in the most recent debate that he was able to “convince” Chinese President Xi Jinping that he “should join the international agreement at the Paris Agreement,” a tale he repeated after his big night on Super Tuesday. Though his phrasing was characteristically unclear, Biden appeared to be arguing that he helped initiate bilateral cooperation between the U.S. and China as a prelude to the Paris Agreement negotiations, which was critical to the deal’s success. But none of the six former White House officials interviewed by E&E News last month recall him or his staff playing a significant role in the Paris Agreement’s passage.

The origin of Biden’s claim is a 2013 meeting in which he, according to one aide interviewed by E&E, proposed the idea of the two countries working together ahead of the Paris conference, after which he relayed the Chinese leader’s reported receptiveness to the idea to Obama. During a campaign event in South Carolina, he also claimed to have negotiated the Paris Agreement itself two years later with Deng Xiaoping, the former Chinese premier whose last public appearance was in 1994 and who died in 1997. “One of the things I’m proudest of is getting passed, getting moved, getting in control of the Paris climate accord,” Biden said. “I’m the guy who came back after meeting with Deng Xiaoping and making the case that I believe China will join if we put pressure on them. We got almost 200 nations to join.”

Biden was not present in Paris for the talks that yielded the Paris Agreement.

Per the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s list of attendees from the 2015 climate talks, Biden was not present in Paris for the talks that yielded the deal, though he did provide feedback during White House meetings on the issue. As senior state officials haggled in a converted French aircraft hangar over the text of what would become the Paris Climate Agreement, then–Vice President Joe Biden attended the unveiling of a bust of former Vice President Dick Cheney in the U.S. Capitol. It was also during that year’s climate talks that The New York Times published a feature by James Risen detailing Hunter Biden’s involvement with the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma.

While the talks continued, Biden traveled to Eastern Europe. It’s a place he visited several times during Obama’s second term, as a cheerleader for natural gas. During an April 2014 trip to Ukraine, Biden unveiled a crisis support package that included enlisting several U.S. government agencies to promote shale gas development, meant to wean Ukraine off Russian gas. American oil and gas companies at the time had also urged lawmakers to ease restrictions on American oil and gas exports, pointing to the potential benefit not just for their own coffers but for aiding Ukraine and undermining Russian dominance in the region. Then–Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz favored easing export restrictions, too, and Obama signed onto an omnibus spending bill that lifted the crude oil export ban in 2015, just days after world leaders celebrated the Paris Agreement.