When it comes to difficult government jobs, few are as tricky as the one held by Xie Zhenhua, China’s chief negotiator on climate change. On the day he agrees to meet the Financial Times, in a room the size of a basketball court near his office in the country’s economic planning ministry, the air outside is “unhealthy”. At least, that is what it says on the smartphone air quality apps people in Beijing check as obsessively as Londoners watch weather forecasts. Much of the smog comes from cars but it also drifts in from the coal-powered plants that have helped propel China’s economy into second place after the US – and turned it into a carbon dioxide polluter like no other. China’s hunger for coal meant it pumped out almost 10 gigatons of CO2 in 2012, more than the US and the EU combined and nearly a third of […]