Beijing: Chinese premier Li Keqiang was expected to issue a joint statement with the European Union in Brussels on Friday reaffirming the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluter would fully meet its Paris Agreement goals.

Chinese media swiftly reported the backlash against US President Donald Trump's decision to exit the global climate action pact, including criticism by the Governor of California Jerry Brown and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk.

Mr Brown will arrive in Beijing next week for a clean energy conference to discuss linking California's carbon trading scheme with several Chinese trials.

In a White House ceremony on Thursday, Mr Trump said the US would withdraw from the 2015 international pact to tackle climate change. The agreement negotiated under his predecessor put at risk US jobs and the US economy, he said, declaring he was "elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris".

Mr Li's joint news conference with German chancellor Angela Merkel, endorsing the Paris Agreement, was seen as another example of Beijing stepping into the world leadership space vacated by the United States, similar to China's championing of global trade.

But well before Mr Trump's announcement, Chinese climate change experts and government officials had flagged for months that the anticipated US decision would have no impact on China's course.

On the ground in China, the march to transform a polluted environment, and pump billions of dollars into attempts to boost renewable energy sources, has been driven by domestic politics - and public unhappiness with air and water quality. Action is visible.

In the first three months of 2017, China's ministry of environment protection punished 5000 businesses for violating emissions laws, a 200 per cent increase.

A spot raid on Sunday by the newly established environmental investigators found 79 per cent of 319 companies inspected around Beijing had failed to install pollution control equipment, or had excessive emissions.

Chinese University of Hong Kong associated professor Yuan Xu said climate change has become a "flagship villain" for China to tackle.

The last coal-fired power station in Beijing was shutdown in March, as the city of 30 million turned to gas and wind for energy (although it will also need to draw on electricity from neighbouring provinces).

China's coal consumption fell for the third year in a row in 2016.

China's National Energy Administration has set out a plan to spend $US360 billion ($486 billion) by 2020 on renewable energy including solar and wind.

The world's largest solar floating farm was opened last week in Anhui province, China, on a lake created by subsidence from coal mining.

Chinese companies are also becoming dominant in renewable technology investment worldwide.

Chinese company Goldwind will build Australia's largest wind farm at Stockyard Hill. Goldwind last week offered free wind farm skills training for unemployed coal miners in Wyoming in the United States.

"China sees climate change not just as a global burden to be reluctantly shared among countries, but more and more as an opportunity to organise domestic governance for achieving domestic benefits," said Mr Xu.

He said China is still the world largest producer and consumer of coal, but the population is demanding a better quality of life.

"Climate mitigation has given China a great opportunity to upgrade its economy towards more innovation and new industries."

He said half of the 1.1 million people working in the wind industry worldwide are in China, and 60 per cent of the world's solar employees, and China has more wind turbines and solar PV installed than in any other country.

Helen Clarkson, chief executive of The Climate Group, which will host the clean energy forum in Beijing next week, said: "China has been taking leadership on climate change for many years."

She said China's five-year plan showed Beijing was committed to curbing coal consumption and CO2 emissions beyond global expectations, and it was also the world's largest renewable energy employer, with 3.5 million people employed in the sector.

A leaked draft showed the statement by European Council President Donald Tusk, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Mr Li, will say: "The EU and China consider climate action and the clean energy transition an imperative more important than ever."

It will commit to cutting fossil fuels, increasing green technology and a $100 billion fund to assist poor nations cut emissions.

The Global Times newspaper said Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement was reckless and would "push the world backwards".