(Bloomberg) -- Economic competition between nations has become the new hurdle in the fight against climate change, according to China’s new climate chief. 

Political roadblocks have impacted climate negotiations for decades now, such as when the US withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, said Liu Zhenmin, who was named Beijing’s Special Climate Envoy earlier this year. Now the battle over who will profit from the tools combating global warming is creating new frictions.

Governments in the US, Europe and India have used tariffs, industrial policies and trade probes to support domestic manufacturing and avoid relying on China in areas where it’s dominant, like solar panels, electric vehicles and batteries. Such measures raise the cost of clean energy overseas and slow down adoption, according to Liu. 

“Protectionism and economic competition are becoming another problem,” he said Thursday at the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan, China.

Read more: Fossil Fuels Must Keep a Role, New China Climate Chief Says 

Officials in the US and Europe have argued that China used unfair government support to build its clean technology industries, undercutting prices and hurting companies abroad. Andrew Forrest, the Australian billionaire mining-to-clean energy tycoon, who was speaking at the same panel as Liu, said most consumers on the planet weren’t complaining.

“We’re really happy to have the Chinese over-supply of renewable equipment, because that’s what’s going to save us,” Forrest said. 

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