it's very solvable. wholesale, not good. bad for america. >> happy thanksgiving. great to see you. >> happy thanksgiving to you. >> and i'll see you back here tomorrow not at 11:00. stephanie ruhle on 11:00 me at noon and 3:00 p.m. eastern. thank you for watching. "on assignment" with richard engel right now. waking up the u.n. was notified the u.s. is formally leaving the paris agreement. formally, because under the terms of the agreement, the u.s. can't depart until november 4, 2020. the day the next elections. so this is really just another chance to tell the president's is a prompters in t-- supporter he addressed in west virginia he's delivering on his campaign promise. but it's far more important than that thp pes that. this is the direction our

country is headed in. importantthings to know. the agreement is non-binding. until now, only two countries refused to sign it. nicaragua and syria. the u.s. formally joined that distinctly unexclusive club. congratulations. the top-ranking american diplomat here in china quit his job two months ago. he simply couldn't understand or defend the decision to quit paris. we have an exclusive interview with him later in the show. some americans believe that global warming is a hoax. we're not going to spend a second of this show discussing whether climate change is man-made or cyclical or caused by alien spacecraft, because, frankly, it doesn't matter. a new world is coming, no matter what you believe. new economies, new businesses. a world of electric cars, and cheap, reliable solar energy. here in china, and all over the world, this isn't just some future plan.

it's happening now. china, to be sure, super polluting and super pa lute epo place and burns more coal and here in beijing, basically the air is not fit to breathe. in the past few years both china and india figured out renewable energy is actually good business, too. both countries have enormous and very poor populations, and yet both plan to not only meet the goal set out in the paris agreement, but beat them. we're about to take you on a journey through asia to see why china and india are racing ahead to embrace new technologies and making a killing in the process. surprisingly, our journey to asia begins in all places, in brooklyn. >> here come the red lights. away they go for race two. the qualcomm new york city e3 and already drivers are mixing it up! >> oh! >> break down inside.

>> reporter: this is what speed sounds like now. welcome to formula e racing. all of the adrenaline, all the excitement with very little noise and zero emissions. and if you've never heard of electric car racing, you probably also haven't heard of the team who came in second and third in this recent race in brooklyn. but in india, mahindra is a household name in a country known for spirituality and some of the most congested streets on earth, a billionaire who drives a tiny, cheap, all-electric car called an e2o. >> sustainability is an opportunity to innovate dramatically. if you look at great leaps of innovation they've come around a single movement of a development. >> reporter: the e2o is not actually that innovative.

in fact, it's about as basic as a car can be but the only electric car made in india and for this young man, owning one is a dream come true. she couldn't wait for her father to sign the papers and for the whole family to climb in. [ applause ] they didn't think it was craft or basic or slow, they thought it was the future, and so does mahindr amplt. >> india suffered from policy of aspirations not just simply from income or wealth and that happily under this current regime is being rectified. so you're going to see a lot of very ambitious goals being set. >> reporter: starting with the goal of replacing every single vehicle on india's roads with an electric by the year 2030. india's prime minister is big on moon shot goals. in 2015, he traveled to california to visit the tesla factory and meet the world's most famous electric car pitchman, elon musk, planning to

open a factory in india. mahinddra welcomes this. time you got over here, ilan. you don't want to leave the whole market there, do you? good point. on twitter, smiley face. >> you made electric cars sexy. he made them desirable. he made them -- they should not be seen as cars for tree huggers anymore. they should be mainstream and he helped do that. we have to acknowledge that. >> reporter: mahindra's cars on the other hand are not designed to be sexy. he's competing on price and scale. the cheapest tesla, a new model 3 can travel three times the distance the e2o travels on a single charge but also costs three times as much and mahindra believes his prices will drop, fast. >> the cost of electric cars is

plummeting. currently two-thirds of the value of an electric car. we expect them to go down to a third very soon. so the tipping point between gree gasoline and electric cars will be reached sooner than people think. >> reporter: the race to make batteries that last longer and cost less is on. chinese manufactures are focusing on quantity and price. mahind mahindra is happy to watch the race play out. >> when the elephants clash good for us. you don't want to get in the way. we love seeing elephants clash particularly when they relate to the supply of batteries to this industry. >> reporter: to see the impact that chinese industry can have on an energy market, we traveled, of all places to rural india. people here still use hand tools and primitive sources of energy, but just over the horizon -- the future is already here.

india produces about 8% of its power from renewables like wind and solar. it's about the same percentage as the united states, but india has set as a national priority the goal of nearly tripling that number in just five years. these solar panels are the fruits of american investment. seven years ago an indian entrepreneur pitched goldman sachs on starting a wind farm in india. they gave him $250 million to get his company renew power started. now it's worth $2 billion. >> we have almost about 60 facilities like this across different parts of rural india. >> reporter: 60 plants like this? >> 60 plants like this. >> reporter: he went to columbia business school in new york says president trump's basic assumption good, old coal is a better, cheaper source of energy than solar is out of date. >> renewable energy is becoming much cheaper than polluting

sources off power innovation. maybe three, five years ago it might have been the correct statement to make which is that, cheaper sources of energy are more polluting nap is no longer the case. >> reporter: new technology -- >> exactly. you have solar and wind now that is far cheaper than any coal-based source of power. >> reporter: this is no ecowarrior. both he and investors were initially drawn in by subsidies offered by the government. the idea, if you subsidize it, they will come. and this field of mirrors is proof that it worked. now market forces are doing the rest. >> the most important thing that's happened is the panels themselves have become cheaper. come down to one ther-third of cost than just two years ago. >> reporter: with each generation of solar panels getting better and cheaper creating a cycle, demand and supply grows rapidly. next we headed to the engine that powers that cycle. china. this is the factory where the

paneling we saw in india are produced. the speed with which factories like this one have popped up is astonishing. >> china now is the largest builder of wind farms and solar farms around the world, by far. they're building at least twice as fast as the united states. they've really taken over the world in terms of solar capacity and solar manufacturing. 66% or so of the solar panels that are sold around the world now are from china or taiwan. >> reporter: alvin lyn is with the fral resource defense council and says china, one of the most polluting and polluted nations on earth changed course a decade ago and is now racing to become a green powerhouse. >> is it because they tried the other experience? choked on the bad air and decided they can't do that anymore? or is it a business opportunity, or both? >> it's both. it's both. you know, china has always been using a lot of coal, because it has a lot of coal. but back in 2006, they passed

the renewable energy law, and so that for the first time really set out these targets, this plan, to support the development of wind and solar. >> reporter: china spent $102 billion on renewable energy in 2015. that's more than twice what the u.s. spent. and while president trump talks about bringing back jobs in coal, china plans to spend even more on renewable energies over the next three years and create 13 million jobs in the process. >> you look for the trends. see where things are going and jump ahead and take the leadership. how you make money, create jobs. that's all china's doing. right? i don't know what the hell we're doing. >> reporter: chris de angelis is an american lawyer who works with large technology companies here in day xing. he sa beijing. while americans argue about climate change, chinese are racing ahead. >> whether or not you believe it, this is where the world's going. take a business focus on it. they see where this is going.

the whole world is going down this path, other than the u.s. right now. right? and it's an opportunity for them to lead. it's an opportunity to generate jobs. so they're killing it right now. >> reporter: and it doesn't stop at solar panels. remember that race to build better and cheaper batteries to power electric cars? chinese factories like this one are ramping up production so quickly that they will soon be making enough batteries here to power about 1.5 million tesla cars a year. for all of musk's energy and innovati innovation, he can't compete with china on his own. >> china's policies are way ahead of the u.s. mandate for new energy far exceed the u.s. people are under the impression china is dragging their feet or somehow behind the u.s. in terms of sustainable energy promotion, but they're by far the most aggressive on earth. >> everyone says, technology,

technology. be creative. be an innovator. okay? and the fact is, in many ways, china almost used technology as a commodity now. right? like, we can buy it. we have tons of people. we can make it. >> reporter: and not only in china -- when the city of los angeles decided to switch its bus fleet to all-electric, a new factory quickly opened up in the mojave desert backed by warren buffett but owned by a chinese company. the first buses are already on the road in lancaster, california. another win for the chinese way of doing renewables. back in his office in beijing, de angelis says american companies were inherently the underdogs in the race. >> we do have amazing pockets of technology all over the u.s. but it's that everybody on their own versus china, which is an entire country, like on the same mission. >> reporter: de angelis has lived in china the past 13

years, has seen how quickly this asian country is changing its ways. what he can't understand is why our president can't do the same. >> all he does is talk about he's going to get coal jobs, or -- it's an old world he's fighting for. it doesn't matter if you like it or not. the future is moving on, and the u.s. needs to accept that. right? >> reporter: is the u.s. going to miss the next sort of industrial revolution here? >> u.s. is still leading the world across almost every technology, from a pure technology perspective. you know, the question really is -- does that matter? >> reporter: critics would say, ah, heard all this before. chinese will be eating our lunch. didn't happen. why is now any different? >> because now is what you're starting to see, the result of 34 years of planning, of an entire nation aligned on one goal that, again, it's not like they're saying, oh, in the next five years. they've been planning this for years. their education system, supply

channels, everything. it's moving up through the system. >> reporter: and they were waiting for this opportunity? >> yeah! i mean, this is -- a 100-year plan. right? >> reporter: so was trump a gift to china? >> i think so. i would be pretty happy if i was china. >> reporter: there was at least one person here in beijing who was not happy when the president dropped out of the paris agreement. he was that senior american diplomat we told you about, and he told me that forced to choose between his career and a policy he could not accept, his fate led him to the answer. >> i'm not a theologian. i'm christian. if we are charged with taking care of the earth that means doing things to make that happen. >> reporter: that story is still to come. first, the president singled out one american city in his speech saying he was elected to represent pittsburgh, not paris. turns out not everyone in pittsburgh was happy about that. we'll have that story, coming up next. [ keyboard clacking ]

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welcome back to beijing. this moment right now feels like a tipping point. all over the world governments and businesses are realizing that what's good for the environment has finally become good for the bottom line too. many american business ace gliut our government does not. why is our president so committed to bringing back coal. i have to say, i don't know, but he sure is. the location for president trump's latest rally was hardly a surprise. west virginia. the man joining him onstage, the state's democratic governor and a billionaire coal magnate

announced to a pumped up crowd he was switching parties and becoming a republican. >> today i'll tell you as vest virginians, i can't help you anymore being a democrat governor. [ cheers and applause ] >> reporter: trump won west virginia by 42 points in november. it was a state where he visited early and often, where his crowds were among the most enthusiastic, and the place where everyone knows coal is king. >> i like hard-hats. let's see if it's a hard-hat? it's a hard-hat! [ cheers ] >> reporter: it was coal country that was also the subject of one of hillary clinton's biggest campaign gaffes. >> we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business and we're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people. >> reporter: remarks like that don't play well in coal country. despite low approval ratings nationwide, the president remains hugely popular in big

coal-producing states like west virginia, wyoming and kentucky. and despite the fact that there are now twice at many solar jobs as coal jobs in the u.s., it doesn't seem like this president is interested in moving on anytime soon. i'm not hearing -- will you cue me? >> reporter: one american city has become the symbol of the struggle between coal and renewables between the glory of the part and the promise of the future. we asked nbc news chief environmental correspondent anne thompson to pay that city a visit. >> reporter: an all-american city trying to move beyond its past. today's pittsburgh gleaning on three rivers. the city president trump highlighted to justify withdrawing from the paris climate agreement. >> i was elected to represent the citizens of pittsburgh, not paris. >> reporter: a shout-out of

pittsburgh's mayor bill peduto took as a cheap shot. >> he's representing an old image stereotype of pittsburgh, an old image stereotype of a city that we are very, very proud of, part of our heritage but also part of our past. >> reporter: peduto should know. the mayor was born here in the shadow of the steel mills and coal mines that powered them. >> both of my grandfathers worked in the mills. my grandfather died at the age of 50 at the jones and lockland mill. >> reporter: is president trump being nostalgic or unrealistic? >> if the president wants to see an example how a city that was knocked out, left for dead, was told its days are gone, can come back and be able to retake its position on a global stage, that all he has to do is come to pittsburgh. >> reporter: they discovered coal in pittsburgh before the country was born. >> announcer: steel has kept pace with and anticipated the

increasing needs of the nation. >> reporter: it fuels the steel industry that gave pittsburgh its nickname. this was steel city. until the domestic industry collapsed in the late 1970s. >> we went through 30 years of a depression. our unemployment in the city was hovering at 19%. >> reporter: that's the pittsburgh peduto wants to leave behind. the city he runs now would seem like science fiction then. >> these guys, too. so this is -- our robot cars. >> reporter: why are you testing in pittsburgh? >> pittsburgh is such a difficult city to drive in. the black diamond of driving. >> only one of five driverless car experiments going on in the city of pittsburgh. we embraced green technology and embraced the very elements that the paris agreement called for as a part of our economic growth strategy. >> reporter: but there is another vision for the area's future. one much closer to its past and president trump's ambition. it lies beneath rolling farmland

an hour away. cossette coal just opened the first coal mine in three years with the president's backing. this man is ceo. >> coal is no longer a four-letter word in this country because of that. that has a big impact on investor relations, lender relations hiring. >> reporter: does pulling out of the paris agreement help or hurt your industry? >> i don't think no question it helps our industry. number one, it's, again, the perception issue. >> reporter: but there is also the matter of facts. the coal produced here won't even be used to generate power. it will be used to make steel. somewhere else. most of it going overseas. today with automation, mining like so much else isn't as labor intensive as it once was. 75 to 100 jobs really is a drop in the bucket when you consider there have been tens of thousands of coal mining jobs lost here? >> we think it's the start of something larger. these miners are typically heads of household.

very much family sustaining incomes. >> reporter: a ripple effect felt at john rhodes nearby coal miner's cafe. >> it's not 70 to 100 jobs. it's 70 to 100 families that can do something. they can go out to eat. they can go to movies and do what they want to do. >> reporter: but pittsburgh's mayor says the president's vision is blind to reality. >> i think he's giving a false promise to those who desperately need hope. >> reporter: what's the problem with trying to revive that industry? >> that the industry's already passed. >> reporter: in its heyday of steel production, people used to describe pittsburgh as hell with a lid off. on his phone, peduto shows pictures of the city during world war ii. >> 12:00 noon. >> reporter: pitch dark? >> lights on 24 hours a day in downtown pittsburgh because of the amount of pollution took away from the ability to see. >> reporter: the smog cleared up when home owners switched from coal to natural gas. today utility companies are doing the same, switching to

cleaner natural gas, wind and solar instead of coal. >> economics is the pile driver that is pushing down the coal industry. >> reporter: eric shaffer used to work for the environmental protection agency. now he leads the non-partisan watchdog group the environmental integrity project. can the current white house return the coal industry to its glory days? >> i don't think so. i don't think you can bring it back with campaign promises and killing environmental rules that protect our air and water is going to save work in the coal industry at all. >> reporter: since the president took office, coal mining added 800 jobs and there's an uptick in production. and at the new mine, a sense of optimism in the air. >> very proud of what we're doing here. and it would be great if the country could see that. >> reporter: in pittsburgh, mayor peduto sees the mine as just a temporary fix. like the steel mills his grandfathers worked in, a symbol of the past. not a road to the future.

so if coal is not pittsburgh's future what? >> there's nothing progressive about telling a coal miner they don't have a job bp so we want to be able to work with them. to be able to help them to see how our economy is now booming in technology. in medicine. in renewable energies. and be able to say there's a future for you, too. >> reporter: pittsburgh electing to stay in the paris agreement to build a greener, more prosperous city. >> reporter: sometimes distance gives us perspective. beijing is a long way from pittsburgh, and here the debate about coal is basically over. people here moved on, and so has the technology. next up -- the most senior american diplomat in china was expected to defend a policy he thought was just wrong. so we decided -- >> serve until you can no longer serve. you have to get up in the morning, particularly at senior

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it's saturday morning here, and people are playing traditional songs in this park. two months ago the most senior american diplomat here resigned from his post. he told staff at the embassy that he couldn't represent the climate policies of the trump administration. so when i plmet him the first thing i asked him was whether his decision was political.

some people watching might think here's some liberal who couldn't stomach the fact that trump got elected president, didn't want to work for the guy and then decided, i'm quitting. >> i have been shot at. i missed the birth of my first child in the senior year of my son, i made a lot of sacrifices for a career i believe in, not because of a particular political point of view but because i think it's the right thing for the country, for the american people. >> reporter: david rank is now back home after 27 years of service, all over the world. the soft-spoken diplomat and his wife mary have spent a lifetime raising a family while quietly promoting the policies of five administrations. >> oh, and they're making strawberry pie. with some blueberries in it. on account of his -- patriot. >> reporter: when president trump announced the u.s. was dropping out of the paris agreement, he got on the phone. >> my wife happened to be back in the united states. we had a very quick exchange.

i said, hon, i don't think i can do this. i don't think i can continue. my wife has followed me to a lot of different places. been incredibly supportive through a long career. was supportive then. i made my decision early saturday morning and then talked to the staff on the following monday. >> reporter: what did you say. i had a serious principle disagreement with the administration, and given where i am, given the level i'm at, i could not continue in the job. >>. >> reporter: you told them, look, i'm leaving, but -- you can't? >> right. >> reporter: you don't all have to leave. weren't trying to take everybody out the door with you, right. that would be terrible for the american people. >> reporter: nicholas burns, served as undersecretary of state under george bush said, i quote about your case "an extraordinary situation for the foreign service. they pride themselves on being non-partisan, serve each president 150%." do you think you fell short of that 125r7bd? >> standard? >> no. actually i feel that's the model of public service is, you serve

until you can no longer serve. you have to get up in the morning, particularly at senior levels, ready to resign that day. you cannot balance your conscience and your obligation, your duty to serve, then i think that is the ultimate of service. >> reporter: rank published an opinion piece in the "washington post" and said when the administration decided to withdraw from the paris agreement on climate change as a parent, patriot and christian i could not in good conscience be involved in anyway with the implement aches, no matter how small, with that decision. >> as patriot, christian and a -- and a parent. as a patriot, worked 30 years to advance american interests. i think pulling out of paris is fundamentally against our interests. as a parent, i have three kids. one of the things as a parent you aspire to do, leave the world, leave them, in a little better shape than you found the world in. and then finally as a christian, i'm not a theologian.

but if we are stewards of creation, charged with taking care of this earth, that means doing things to make that happen. and if there is a better instrument for that to address climate change, then the paris agreement i haven't heard about it. >> reporter: the president calmed the paris agreement, i quote "latest example of washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the united states to the exclusive benefit of other countries." >> -- leaving american workers who i love and taxepayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories -- >> reporter:" and vastly diminishing economic production." basically saying people like you value the environment more than american workers. >> i mean, the u.s. made remarkable strides in reducing emissions over the past 20 years and not at the expense of jobs. the idea there's a contradiction between more climate-friendly policies and the economy, i think just the -- the basic

facts don't bear that out. >> reporter: a career in the state except is not all about speeches and conferences. rank had hardship postings including a two-year long tour in afghanistan which came under heavy fire twice during his time there. >> get down! >> reporter: now he's trying to readjust to life on a quiet street in virginia. what's it like to be back in suburban america? >> i have always loved the united states of america. great to be back. >> reporter: still kind of catching up? reintegrated with your -- >> who do i talk to? if you have a job. let me know. >> reporter: are you looking for a job? >> i got to figure out what i'm going to do with myself. yeah. >> reporter: both rank and the state department are, well, diplomatic about his departure. the official statement very much by the book. >> anything to say about the abrupt resignation of mr. rank in beijing?

>> his decision was a personal decision and if you all will give me the grace as i go through my book here. we know that he spoke to staff there. wait a second. we appreciate his years of dedicated service to the state department, and for anything more on that i have to refer you to mr. rank. >>. >> reporter: are you angry your career after nearly 30 years end the way it did? >> not at all. i remember thinking on the way out what i felt was just a sense of gratitude. gratitude to the people i worked with. to the american people who trusted me to represent him for a long time. i didn't expect it to end that way, but, you know, to leave on my own terms -- it's a real privilege. no. i'm just very grateful. >> reporter: of course, it's important to note that this administration hasn't just pulled out of one international agreement. across the board, there's a clear push to reduce environmental protections. the newly appointed head of the epa has a history of arguing

that the agency should be eliminated. funding for research in this era, targeted for cuts. the list goes on. coming up later in the show, what a difference a little power can make in a small village in cambodia. stay with us.

welcome back to beijing. there's been much talk about the paris agreement and debate about the science behind it, but where did it come from and when? the answer may very well surprise you. ♪

>> reporter: back in the summer of 1988, ronald reagan decided the time had come to tackle climate change once and for all. the problem, as he saw it, wasn't the fact that the globe was warming. it was having to listen to all the scientists insisting that the globe was warming. so his administration got behind the creation of the ipcc, the international panel on climate change, which came into existence at the end of that year. the idea behind the ipcc was simple. the very best scientists from around the world would convene to consider three things -- first, whether humanity was responsible for climate change. second, if so, by how much. and third, what could you done about it? those scientists would hammer out a report and based on the conclusions countries would be given recommendations to follow, and while the white house may have hoped it would keep them tied up for years, what it didn't count on was the process actually working, which is did less than two years later when

the group issued its first comprehensive report. it clearly linked global warming to human activity. that report paved the way for 25 years of negotiations, culminating in the paris agreement. those reports have overwhelming support in the international scientific community. the problem is, only scientists understand the science. there have been five issued since 1990 and each one is thousands of pages long. to make life simple, each comes with a short summary to make the science easy to grasp but governments get to chip in on the summaries and surprise, surprise. that's where things start getting political. so to keep everyone happy, it was decided that these agreements would be completely non-binding. that means there is absolutely no penalty if a country fails to meet its climate target, which is why for almost 30 years now republicans and democrats have taken turns to stand up and pledge to act, and then haven't. >> the united states is strongly

committed to the ipcc process of international cooperation on global climate change. >> i am very pleased that the united states has reached a truly historic agreement with other nations of the world to take unprecedented steps. >> my administration has taken a rational balanced approach to these serious challenges. we believe we need to protect our environment. >> reporter: even president obama who came into office promising to lead the way came up short. he arrived at the copenhagen climate summit in 2009 amit huge expectations but the deal fell apart. >> i don't know how you have an international agreement where we all are not sharing information and ensuring that we are meeting our commitments. that doesn't make sense. it would be a hollow victory. >> reporter: the fact was president obama didn't have congressional support and everybody in copenhagen knew it.

so in paris six years later, the president tried a radical new approach. he used an old semantic trick to take congress right out of the decision-making. during a state visit to china the president said all the differences with beijing had been ironed out. >> this is a major milestone in the u.s./china relationship. and it shows what's possible when we work together on an urgent global challenge. >> reporter: so this time around somehow a non-binding agreement was not a hollow victory. these twists of logic demonstrate why other signatories are fed up with washington. amp the drama of the obama years -- the next president just yanks the country back out again. but here's where president trump may have seriously miscalculated. had he stayed in, washington would have been able to veto any meaningful change it didn't want. by leaving in an effort to deny barack obama legacy, he's freed up the rest of the world to establish a set of rules without

any input from the u.s. of course, in terms of credibility, it doesn't help when a new president comes in and tears up an agreement made by the previous administration. would you take america at its word if you were negotiating with us? next up a story about a miracle in a mon stare in cambodia. the miracle of light. stay with us. he trash? (sigh) ( ♪ ) dad: molly! trash! ( ♪ ) whoo! ( ♪ ) mom: hey, molly? it's time to go! (bell ringing) class, let's turn to page 136,

recessive traits skip generations. who would like to read? ( ♪ ) molly: i reprogrammed the robots to do the inspection. it's running much faster now. see? it's amazing, molly. thank you. ( ♪ )

welcome back to beijing. we've heard a lot of big nushs in today's show. lots of billions with a "b."

the fact is the price of alternative energy technology is dropping having a profound effect on some of asia's poorest people. we went to meet them. >> reporter: for two centuries, generations of monks have prayed at this remote came bodyian monastery. a way of life that outlasted war, famine and poverty. [ chanting ] a few years ago something happened here that changed that way of life for the better. that something was -- electricity. powered by a solar panel on the roof. >> translator: we had to light many lamps before. >> reporter: this was the head monk who oversaw the installation. "now we can study late into the night." in cambodia, only 56% of the

population lives in places that are connected to the power grid. in remote parts of the country, the only way to get electricity was, until recently, one of these. but generators are hard to maintain and expensive to run. now there's a much cheaper option available -- a solar panel, typically made in china, costs about $400 to set up. that's a lot of money for this woman and her family, but they recently installed one on their one-room house. now she has light to cook by every night, and her days no longer need to end when the sun goes down. it has changed my life, she says. i can do whatever i want, whenever i want.

her husband does construction work. he tells me he doesn't make much, but says the panel was worth every penny. across southeast asia, more than 120 million people still don't have electricity. solar energy has the potential to transform lives here. we traveled to thailand, another country which has struggled to meet rising demand. but rural areas like this -- and they're all over the region -- are waking up to the possibilities of renewables. what they're government can't provide them with, solar panels can. like in this village where people have built themselves a mini electricity grid that runs on solar power. it helps farmers irrigate their fields and grow the local

economy. they've been empowered, so to speak, by the man who runs workshops on solar energy so the villagers can learn how to install and maintain their systems. self-taught, he started sharing his skills about 15 years ago. his approach is so successful, he now teaches 60 communities a year. the thai government has limited resources, he says. they try to help as much as they can, but the community needs to meet them halfway. once installed, these panels will give homes enough power to run a small television and some light bulbs for the very first time. it doesn't sound like much, but consider this. southeast asia has one of the fastest growing populations in the world. demand for electricity is

climbing, and bigger solar projects are already under construction. renewable energy could be a chance for emerging countries to be part of the solution and not the problem. >> it can sometimes seem like a small thing. one solar panel on a monastery with a micro grid. but these small changes can add up because the people we just saw in that story are not replacing dirty power with clean power. they're skipping coal altogether. here in china, that's not how things went, and people here will pay the price for generations to come. chinese parents have an item on their babies' shopping list that seems straight out of an apocalypse movie. an air purification mask for very small children. that story is next. stay with us.

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welcome back to beijing. it's a summer day here, and the air seems relatively clear. but in the city, you don't inhale without checking the pollution index. today it stands at 97, which isn't that bad by local standards. but it would be considered pretty disastrous in any american city. electric cars in china are coming, but this is still a very polluted country. majun is considered by many to be the father of the chinese environmental movement. he started out as an

investigative reporter, but these days he's turned the whole country into environmental detectives. >> this is what we call light pollution, then moderate pollution. >> and red is obviously not good? >> yeah. >> his award-winning app allows ordinary people who see something in the air or in the water to say something. every subscriber then gets a realtime picture of how bad the pollution is. >> people can check about all this emission sources data. >> so if they're going somewhere, going to a neighborhood or going on an errand, they can check on this to see what it's like? >> they can check. >> he's 47 years old. in his lifetime, china was transformed from a largely agricultural society to an industrial powerhouse. millions of people were lifted out of poverty, but the sky went dark in the process. was it like this when you were a child? >> it was different, very different. we did have blue sky, and i learned my swimming in the nearby river. but now, you know, we lost blue

sky and much of the clean water. >> how did china lose its blue sky? >> 35 years of massive industrialization and urbanization, and it's very much coal-based energy and pollution-intensive. >> ma jun says inhaling the dirty air is a lot like inhaling cigarette smoke. he took me to the clean air center. it specializes in masks, filters, and other devices to protect families from the pollution. of all the things that we've seen, this one bothers me the most. a baby-size little gas mask. and then this is for what age? this is for like a 1-year-old, 2-year-old? >> under 3. >> under 3. china is now setting higher and higher targets for the switch to renewable fuels and decommissioning the oldest, most polluting coal-burning power stations. air quality is slowly improving, but it's going to take a generation at best before the

sky over beijing is consistently blue again. ma jun says there's a lesson in that for anyone who thinks coal spells progress. >> you know, when i heard some of the efforts, actions, trying to weaken the role, the capacity of the epa in america, i'm a little bit concerned. i hope that before you take that action, maybe you could come here and get a sense about the outcome, you know, before you make that decision. >> we've talked a lot tonight about pollution, electric cars, and coal. but really this show isn't just about the environment. it's about the direction our country is taking. the world is heading in one way, but president trump, for reasons that can only be guessed at, is heading in the opposite direction. this is why we travel all over the world with this show, because sometimes to really understand what's happening in our country, you need to get some distance to see things from other people's perspective. i have to tell you from here in beijing right now, that letter

the state department sent a few hours ago to the u.n. makes very little sense. that's it for this season of "on assignment." we're grateful to rachel for lending us her fridays. we'll be back in a few months with more stories from other parts of the world. president trump's asia trip has been all about trying to push north korea. the question is, what is kim jong-un going to do next? will he give up his nuclear ambitions or will he push back? it's the most dangerous conflict in the world and i recently got right up to the front lines in the cockpit of an f-16. >> so this is about the north edge of the air space. we're about seven miles from the north korean border right here. >> so this is as far as you can go without provoking a war? >> yep.