King coal The biggest carbon emitter is still wedded to its dirty habit

When he was a boy in the 1980s, Wang Xiaojun was taught to be proud of his home town of Lüliang in the north-western Chinese province of Shanxi. The province is China’s biggest coal-producing region, and Lüliang was a significant base for the army during the second world war.

Lüliang, a city of 3.4 million people, has had less to shout about in recent years. A series of corruption scandals in the city brought down several high profile officials shortly after President Xi Jinping came to power in 2013; there are concerns over the high number of babies born with congenital