Caught between a fossil fuel past and a green future, China’s coal miners chart an uncertain path

Wang Bingbing and his wife in their village in China’s Shanxi province. His life reflects the story of coal’s past, when the industry was notoriously dangerous but booming. Photograph: Ding Gang/The Guardian

Gazing over the remains of his home, Wang Bingbing surveys a decades-old jujube tree flowering through the rubble, and the yard where he and his wife once raised pigs, now a pile of crumbled brick.

In the valley below, a sprawling coalmine is the source of their dislocation: years of digging heightened the risk of landslides, forcing Wang and his family out. To prevent the family from returning, local authorities later demolished their home.