CNN Profiles - Helen Regan - Digital Producer, CNN International - CNN

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HUAINAN, CHINA - JUNE 12: Chinese workers prepare panels that will be part of a large floating solar farm project under construction by the Sungrow Power Supply Company on a lake caused by a collapsed and flooded coal mine on June 12, 2017 in Huainan, Anhui province, China. The floating solar field, billed as the largest in the world, is built on a part of the collapsed Panji No.1 coal mine that flooded over a decade ago due to over-mining, a common occurence in deep-well mining in China's coal heartland. When finished, the solar farm will be made up of more than 166,000 solar panels which convert sunlight to energy, and the site could potentially produce enough energy to power a city in Anhui province, regarded as one of the country's coal centers. Local officials say they are planning more projects like it, marking a significant shift in an area where long-term intensive coal mining has led to large areas of subsidence and environmental degradation. However, the energy transition has its challenges, primarily competitive pressure from the deeply-established coal industry that has at times led to delays in connecting solar projects to the state grid. Chinaâs government says it will spend over US $360 billion on clean energy projects by 2020 to help shift the country away from a dependence on fossil fuels, and earlier this year, Beijing canceled plans to build more than 100 coal-fired plants in a bid to ease overcapacity and limit carbon emissions. Already, China is the leading producer of solar energy, but it also remains the planetâs top emitter of greenhouse gases and accounts for about half of the worldâs total coal consumption. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Why China and India shouldn't let coronavirus justify walking back climate action

SELBY, ENGLAND - MARCH 02: A general view of Drax Power Station on March 02, 2020 in Selby, England. The station is the largest coal-fired power facility in Western Europe and provides about 7% of the country's electricity. The owner of the bio-fuel and coal-fired plant has said it will phase out the use of coal from its Yorkshire power station in March next year. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

The world is coming together to fight coronavirus. It can do the same for the climate crisis