Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg speaks during the ninth Democratic 2020 U.S. Presidential candidates debate at the Paris Theater in Las Vegas Nevada, US, February 19, 2020. (Reuters Photo: Mike Blake)

During the Democratic debate in Las Vegas Thursday, US presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg said he was willing to work with India to tackle the carbon emission crisis, adding that the problem of greenhouse gas emissions in India was bigger than in China. The billionaire businessman, who has heavily invested in China, was responding to a question during a debate on climate change policy and on what he would do to force Beijing — the number one producer of carbon emissions in the world — to tackle the crisis.

“We’ll never be able to solve this problem without China and India, western Europe and America,” Bloomberg said on carbon emissions. “(We) have to negotiate with (China) and convince them that their people will die as well, and then work together.

“In all fairness, the Chinese have slowed down. It’s India that is an even bigger problem. But (carbon emissions) is an enormous problem. Nobody’s doing anything about it,” he added, during the ninth debate cycle.

According to a fact check done by The New York Times, Bloomberg’s statement was incorrect in terms of China having slowed down its emissions.

NYT writes: “China’s emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, rose last year from 2018, according to the International Energy Agency. In fact, emissions have risen each year since 2017, after having declined in 2015 and 2016. Experts say China had been stimulating its economy to try to keep up growth rates. Industrial coal-burning is the largest source of greenhouse gases in China, which remains the world’s largest emitter.”

Bloomberg is the former mayor of New York, who was once a Republican. Thursday’s debate was Bloomberg’s first appearance.