China at COP26: Beijing's coal addiction is key to climate summit

China is a country of epic contradictions.

It is home to the world’s largest solar farm, a rolling ocean of 4 million panels high up in the Tibetan plateau that’s large enough to cover Manhattan. Some 600 miles to the east, in Inner Mongolia, are the belching smokestacks of the Tuoketuo power plant, the world's largest coal-fired power station and one of the biggest single sources of pollution ever created.

On Sunday, at the start of COP26, the world may get a clue as to which of China’s two extremes will dominate the coming decades —...