![A worker cleans a solar panel on top of a factory building in Baoding City. China is installing a soccer field's worth of solar panels every hour. Image by Sean Gallagher. China, 2017. A worker cleans a solar panel on top of a factory building in Baoding City. China is installing a soccer field's worth of solar panels every hour. Image by Sean Gallagher. China, 2017.](/sites/default/files/05-18-17/gallagher_photo.jpg)
After years of ignoring the deadly problem, China's leaders are finally starting to take air pollution seriously. Progress has been bumpy and lurching, but the effort is real. Coal use is starting to fall and the biggest-ever investment in wind and solar power is underway, so the Chinese war on pollution has important implications for the global struggle to slow climate change.