China’s provincial mandarins and party officials have always ignored the diktats from the central government as much as possible. “The mountains are high and the emperor is far away,” goes the old saying. Now, local governments’ determination to support their heavily subsidized coal industries is undermining Beijing’s efforts to develop renewable energy sources. Business newspaper Caixin reports that in some provinces wind farms have been forced to take up to 60% of their turbines offline because of competition from the coal-fired plants. In the first quarter of 2016 26% of China’s wind turbines sat idle, up from 15% for all of last year.
