China has an opportunity to lead the global fight against climate change with the US set to tamp down its commitments following the election of Donald Trump as president, South Africa’s environment minister said. The world’s biggest emitter has faced scathing criticism from the US and developed European nations for not pulling its weight when it comes to stumping up climate finance to help poorer nations adapt to a warming world. China has contended that as a developing nation it’s not responsible for the build up of gases from industrial activities over the last three centuries. “That’s the big debate that is going on,” Dion George, the environment minister, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Friday. “If it’s going to be the superpower, the global superpower that it may aspire to be, then” it needs to show some leadership. Nations are currently debating how to tackle climate change at COP29 in Azerbaijan in the wake of this year’s hurricanes, floods and droughts — which devastated communities in the US, Europe and Africa. Developing nations are demanding annual climate finance of $1.3-trillion, a big step up from the $100-billion developed countries committed to in 2009 but have only recently met.