Chris Wright is considered a climate change skeptic.

Meanwhile, the current President Joe Biden has met with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the final time before he hands the keys to the White House back to Donald Trump.

Our correspondent Jessica Parker has this report from Florida.

This was Joe Biden and Xi Jinping's last leaders meeting.

A White House official recently said that Mr. Biden had shown that the two countries can and must manage their differences.

But Joe Biden's time to manage anything of this kind, of course, is fast running out.

Lots of focus now on what Donald Trump will do in office.

And he signaled an intention to take a tough line on Beijing.

Meanwhile, the transition process goes on here in West Palm Beach, really the HQ of that, where Donald Trump has his Mar-a-Lago home.

And he's announced his pick for energy secretary, an oil and gas boss called Chris Wright, who last year said there is no climate crisis.

Donald Trump has, of course, signaled he wants to ramp up fossil fuel production.

He's talked about drill, baby drill, much to the alarm of climate and environmental groups, given fossil fuels' role as the main driver in climate change.

Donald Trump, of course, doesn't actually take office until January.

But whether it is foreign policy or domestic policy, you're already feeling that shift in power.

Jessica Parker there from Florida.

So as we've been hearing, those two world leaders of the world's biggest economies met on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Peru.

The Chinese leader Xi Jinping has told President Biden that he's willing to work for a smooth transition in relations with the U.S. when Donald Trump takes office in January.

So a lot to discuss.

I'm pleased to say that we're joined by Professor Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies, a university here in London.

Professor, welcome.

So we're hearing that there is a willingness by Xi Jinping for a smooth transition.

He's arguably extending an olive branch.

But when you've got Trump talking about potentially 60 percent tariffs being put on Chinese exported goods, is that going to be a two way extension of this olive branch?

Well, I think what we have seen at Lima was for the first time under the Biden administration that Xi Jinping saw something in common with Biden, which is that both were addressing their remarks towards Donald Trump because they both want to make sure that when Donald a completely slippery slope going all the way down.

Arguably Donald Trump is not listening because from those appointments to his administration that we've seen so far, the likes of Marco Rubio, Michael Waltz, these are hard line hawks when it comes to China.

They're suspicious of China.

They have American interests first.

Donald Trump is not sending that kind of messaging that Xi Jinping is trying to.

Oh, absolutely right.

But then when Donald Trump says America first, Xi Jinping understand him to mean Donald Trump first.

Xi Jinping also understand that at the ministerial level, the relationship moving forward between China and the United States would be very, very difficult, not least because Rubio is actually sanctioned by China and China will have to lift the sanctions if Rubio is confirmed as U.S.

Secretary of State.

But Xi Jinping also knows that he was able to communicate effectively with Donald Trump on the person to person level, something he could not do with Biden.

And in the last Trump administration, Xi was able to get Trump to ease up pressure when the United States got China by the throat, for example, over the SETI or when Donald Trump went on a super state visit to Beijing.

On both occasions, Xi Jinping got his way with Donald Trump.

That is a fascinating insight.

And what do you make of Donald Trump choosing a fracking advocate, a climate change sceptic to be his energy secretary, Chris Wright?

What kind of messaging is he giving there?

We already know that the COP29, the climate summit, the UN climate summit is being really described as not fit for purpose by some leading environmentalists.

Will this arguably give China the green light to carry on with potentially not doing as much in terms of climate change as the international community would want it to?

I think on the contrary, the Chinese actually see Donald Trump's appointments apart from those who are dealing with relationship with China in a much more positive light.

The simple reason is that Donald Trump is discrediting the United States, both in terms of climate change and more generally as leader of the world, and also undermining the credibility of democracies being superior to autocracies.

So the Chinese actually find it quite useful when they try to engage with what they would like to call the global south, the overwhelming majority of people and countries in the world to say that US is not the country to look up to, China actually have your back.

So from that perspective, that's one good thing out of the Trump administration for China.

Professor Teng from the SOWAS China Institute joining us from London, thank you very much for your insight.

Really fascinating stuff.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So, as we've been hearing, the US President-elect Donald Trump has chosen that fracking advocate, a climate change sceptic, to be his energy secretary.

Chris Wright, who founded the energy company Liberty, has been given the task of cutting red tape to drive investment into fossil fuels.

Mr Wright joins Donald Trump's growing list of cabinet nominees, several of whom are facing intense scrutiny.

Juliette Manchester is a reporter at the political website The Hill, and she told my colleague Lauren Taylor more about Chris Wright's nomination for energy secretary.

He is the head of a major fracking company, certainly has pushed back against the idea that there is this climate crisis happening, that there is global warming.

So it really tracks with former President Trump's commitment in many ways to non-renewable resources and pushing for that.

And it sort of goes against what we've seen the Biden administration prioritize.

With a lot of these cabinet picks, I think what you see is Donald Trump choosing people who predictably fit his agenda, and they give us a sneak peek or a sneak preview of what we can see in terms of the next four years, in terms of energy and climate, et cetera, from the administration.

And Trump's critics are already alarmed by some of these picks.

Presumably his supporters are delighted with them.

But how difficult will it be to get them through the Senate confirmation process?

And do you think that Trump will be obliged to or will try to bypass that?

Well, look, Trump has a few things going for him.

Number one, the Senate is controlled by Republicans, so it's his party.

The issue, though, is that there are a number of Republicans who have issues with some of these picks, most notably Matt Gaetz, the former Florida congressman.

He, of course, has been the subject of a former Justice Department investigation that has been dropped about sexual misconduct, allegedly with a minor, and illicit drug use, among other issues, as well as a House ethics investigation.

A number of Senate Republicans have spoken out against that.

So there would only need to be four Senate Republicans for one of these nominations to drop.

And Matt Gaetz is pretty controversial.

There's also the question of this fast-tracking or recess appointments that could bypass much of this confirmation process.

But a lot of that will fall to Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

And we know that John Thune, while he isn't anti-Trump, he has pushed back against the president-elect in some cases, most notably during the 2020 presidential election.

He pushed back against Donald Trump's denial of those election results.

So a lot of this will come down to the new Senate Majority Leader.

And what about who we haven't seen yet?

What are the posts that are important that are coming up?

Well, I think a lot of them have been filled, but I believe we're waiting on the FBI posts to be filled, but also the Department of Education.

And that's interesting because we've heard that the former president or the president-elect has essentially said he wants to slash or dramatically reduce the Department of Education.

So there's a question of whether he'll even appoint someone to that position.

He would rather it, you know, this issue of education be put back to the states and localities.

So we'll see what he does there.

In the last Trump administration, Betsy DeVos, a businesswoman, she was in charge of the department, but it's unclear who will lead it or if anyone will lead it this time.

The Hill's Julia Manchester speaking to my colleague, Lauren Taylor.