For example, open-cast coal mines, and coal-fired power stations fed by them, are among the cheapest (and most environmentally damaging) ways to generate electricity from fossil fuel.
it's now actually cheaper, over the lifetime of the installation, to cover that land with solar panels, than to dig it up and burn it.
Fossil fuel, as the name suggests, is dead.
It's 'simply' a case of capturing it.
Many panels are made in China. Not a place really known for it's uninvolved government, from what I hear.
The whole 'it's all powered by fossil fuels' argument is a bit old now, and was only really valid becuase so much of the energy mix was in fact fossil. As we switch, the argument increasingly no longer holds.
As for your comments on China - they certainly don't have any issues allowing widespread pollution and industrial poisoning of their people and land.
>The whole 'it's all powered by fossil fuels' argument is a bit old now
It'll only be "old" when China reduces the amount of coal (and mostly brown coal) that it uses to manufacture all this stuff for us. They have enormous reserves, it won't happen any time soon.