Will China Kick Its Coal Habit?

China is stuck between a fossil fuel-dependent past and a future powered by renewable energy. The country today generates 53% of the world's coal-fired power. At the same time, it is the world's leading manufacturer of, and market for, solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles. Whether China can free itself from its decades-old addiction to coal will determine not just its own environmental future, but also - and more crucially - Earth's prospects in the face of the gathering climate crisis. China's leaders began to recognize the need for change in the early 2000s. The largely coal-fueled "economic growth…