The rocky road to Copenhagen (climate treaty meeting)

Lots of stuff in the news about the Copenhagen conference today. Not all of it is good news; some of it isn't too bad.

This is the most bad:
UN climate talks could fail, EU ministers warn

"French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told AFP that Copenhagen would be judged as a success if there is the willingness from rich countries to help poorer ones deal with the effects of global warming.

"It is the richest who must share most of the burden with developing countries," Kouchner said.

This is less bad:
European Commission offers aid for developing countries on climate change

"The commissioner proposed that the EU pay between 10 and 30 per cent of the global total of the international public finance part of the requisite financing, which would amount to between 2 billion euros and 15 billion euros a year by 2020. The precise amount finally decided upon would depend on the relative weight accorded to two principles: the ability of a country to pay and its responsibility for emissions."

This is astonishing (and unlikely):
Wind could meet China's electricity needs by 2030: study

"McElroy's team used meteorological and geographical data to calculate China's total wind capacity and then estimated how much power could be delivered profitably at different floor prices.

They found that wind energy providers could profitably supply all of China's projected electricity demand by 2030 if they receive at least 0.516 yuan (7.6 US cents) per kilowatt hour for the first 10 years."

further on down it says "Benefits in terms of improvements in Chinese air quality would be substantial, however, and there could be important benefits also for the Chinese economy." By contrast, meeting future needs with coal could increase carbon emissions by 3.5 gigatons a year from the current annual level of 6.6 gigatons.
Health problems caused by air pollution are currently estimated to cost 0.7 to 4.3 percent of China's GDP, the authors note."

and finally: A network of wind turbines operating at as little as 20 percent of their capacity would be able to produce as much as 24.7 petawatt hours of electricity annually, which is seven times the country's current consumption. "Wind farms would only need to take up land areas of 0.5 million square kilometers, or regions about three quarters of the size of Texas," said co-author Xi Lu, a graduate student in McElroy's group at Harvard.

But how many turbines do you really need? And how fast do they have to be built? And can T. Boone Pickens explain all this to me?