Reports from the United Nations talks in Marrakech, Morocco, on Wednesday said China’s vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin addressed the issue by pointing out that it was Trump’s predecessors who had started climate change negotiations in the 1980s.

According to Bloomberg, Liu reminded Trump that it was U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush who supported the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in initiative talks on global warming before China even knew that negotiations to reduce pollution were beginning.

“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,” he was quoted as telling reporters during an hour-long briefing.

Officials from nearly 200 countries are in Marrakech this week for a UN Climate Change Conference 2016 where delegates are looking for ways to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement. The talks have, however, been overshadowed by Trump’s shock victory in the U.S. presidential polls last week. U.S. representatives at the conference have found themselves hammered with questions on U.S.’ commitment to the Paris deal to cut global greenhouse gas emissions.

Trump had in 2012 famously tweeted that the concept of global warming was “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive”. China’s envoy has since rejected that view.

Trump, however, recently denied making the claim. During the first of his presidential debates with contender, Democrat Hillary Clinton, he was reminded of the remark but denied it, only to earn scorn on social media when his tweet was recalled and re-posted repeatedly in news reports.

Liu on Wednesday expressed China’s commitment to the global effort against climate change, despite Trump’s view on the matter.

He also reportedly urged the incoming president and the post-Barack Obama administration to support the process, which he said would actually boost U.S. competitiveness.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who is also at the Marrakech conference, was quoted by Reuters as saying that he had hoped his presence there to decide on the finer points of the Paris deal would be a victory lap.

Instead, he said he has found himself having to address concerns over what Trump would do once he takes office in January.

“While I can’t stand here and speculate about what policies our president-elect will pursue, I will tell you this: In the time that I have spent in public life, one of the things I’ve learned is that some issues look a little bit different when you’re actually in office compared to when you’re on the campaign trail,” he was quoted as saying.

The U.S. under Obama had worked closely with China last year to build support for the Paris agreement, which came into force on Nov 4, four days before the presidential polls. The Marrakech conference is said to be in part a celebration and re-affirmation of that milestone.