Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice-chairman of China’s national development and reform commission said that Beijing would easily surpass Europe’s current 2020 targets for the use of wind and solar power hoping to now reach targets three times higher. This is a part of China’s ambitious plans to increase in its use of wind and solar power over the next ­decade and believes it can match Europe by 2020.

Zhang said the new goal could be 100GW by 2020, though in the current plan, the goal for wind energy is 30 gigawatts..

“Similarly, by 2020 the total installed capacity for solar power will be at least three times that of the original target [3GW],” Zhang said in an interview in London.

“We are now formulating a plan for development of renewable energy. We can be sure we will exceed the 15% target. We will at least reach 18%. Personally I think we could reach the target of having renewables provide 20% of total energy consumption.”

In Hillary Clinton’s her gig as Secretary of State, climate and energy will be high on the agenda. Thus, Clinton’s first trip will be to China, as well as a first stop to Japan, which is scheduled for later this month.

Clinton is taking cues from her boss, the newly-elected President Barack Obama to work with the industrializing giant on cilmate and energy issues.

Todd Stern, the newly created special envoy on climate change for the United States told the New York Times, “Secretary Clinton is keenly aware that the United States — as the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases — and China — as the largest emitter going forward — need to develop a strong, constructive partnership to build the kind of clean energy economies that will allow us to put the brakes on global climate change. We need to put finger-pointing aside and focus on how our two leading nations can work together productively to solve the problem.”

China is reaching a point of desperation with their extreme pollution problem. To help get more cars off the roads, the city of Beijing is offering to pay citizens up yo $3600 to give up heavily polluting vehicles — and even give drivers more money to purchase more eco-friendly cars. A recent poll found that 20% of Beijing’s population has considered leaving the country because of the terrible air quality.

China’s environmental protection bureau’s intention is part of a larger plan to get Beijing’s more than 350,000 high-polluting vehicles out of the city during 2009. China’s capital has already banned cars from the roads on one of five weekdays based on their license plate number. This has apparently resulted is a 7% rise in clear sky days in 2008. There are some environmental groups that disagree with this statistic, suggesting that China is fudging the numbers.

This aggressive push would take up to 10 percent of the city’s 3.5-million registered cars off the roads an amount that is thought to account for approximately 50% of the city’s horrendously rising pollution.