Tillerson’s nomination was “almost certain” to be a boost to the US fossil fuels sector, veteran climate policy watcher Wu Changhua said.

“So far, Tillerson is the only person in the Trump team who has publicly admitted links between human activities and global climate change,” Wu said.

“Yet the oil and gas sectors’ return to glory under the Trump administration looks unavoidable, which will also deal a heavy blow to the development of renewables.”

Under Tillerson, ExxonMobil, the world’s biggest public oil company, declared support for the Paris Agreement, the global deal reached last year to combat dangerous temperature rises.

Wu said Trump’s team was probably still considering its position on climate change, with Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, meeting Al Gore, a campaigner for action on global warming, earlier this month.

Peking University international relations professor Zhang Haibin said that amid all the uncertainties of Trump’s climate policies, it was time for China to analyse various possible scenarios and prepare responses to manage risks.

“For instance, the worst scenario could be Trump will withdraw from the UN climate architecture altogether, or he would prefer to remain in the global climate deal but not seriously deliver on its pledges,” Zhang said.

“It makes more sense for China to have clear thoughts on how it will respond to each scenario, and remain flexible to minimise the risks in an age of uncertainties.”

Wu and Zhang agreed that the active Sino-US cooperation on climate under Obama would end with Trump.

Wu said the two countries would also likely to have common business interests in fossil fuels.

“The US may see China as a market for oil and gas, and even for clean coal technology as an answer to China’s air pollution problems,” she said. “If this turns out to be the case, such collaboration between world’s two largest carbon polluters would definitely not be a positive signal for the world.”