Born in Argentina, Tomás Saraceno was trained as an architect. His job was to design buildings.  Now, he designs transparent globes that float and tell us stories about the fragility of the planet.

 His exhibition in the National Gallery of Denmark is part of RETHINK, where a group of artists from Europe and the developing world have come to tell their own stories in the city where an agreement on climate change was discussed and never reached. The theme of Tomas’s segment, Biospheres, is simple. A big transparent balloon hangs from the ceiling; as you enter it, you have a sense of uncertainty, because you feel as if you were suspended in limbo. Attached to the balloon are black strings that end in smaller balloons where plants and ponds are attached to the floor. It looks like a combination of both the spider and the monster taken from H.G. Wells’ War of The Worlds

 “How little we know about the planet and where we stand in the universe”, he tells me, when I ask him about the meaning behind this exhibition.

 “Biosphere one is the planet earth”, he tells me, pointing to the huge transparent balloon that hangs from the top of the gallery. “It’s a huge inflatable structure. When people are suspended in it, the surface becomes very unstable.” And, for him, that is the way we live on the earth. A place that you can no longer take for granted.

 When people enter the sphere, they tend to move in different ways simply because the surface is  uneven; some fall over while others try to keep standing. And that, according to Tomás, creates a kind of dialogue. An unstable world where people can talk to one another, regardless of their origin or language. “It shows how much we depend one on another”, he tells me.

 He believes that the balloon also represents an eco-system, where human beings learn to relate to one another.

 “It is a work I started ten years ago. Its inspiration was the clouds and the idea was to build up a symbolic, interactive space where we can liberate,  in a way,  the eco-system, so we can learn to inhabit the planet again.”

 It is somehow impossible not to establish a link between art and politics in Tomás’s work. After all, his exhibition is part of RETHINK, a movement of artists who want to use their work to raise awareness about the way we are treating the planet. And COP15 is, after all, political.

 Tomas must have expected my question because he smiled like somebody who has a ready-made answer. “Things have gone beyond politics”, he tells me. “Climate change  is something that has to be tackled by all of us, and only now politicians are becoming aware of the problem”. He informs me that this movement did not start recently but in the 1960s with groups like “the hippies in Christiania”. He is referring to an old barracks which was taken over by people who wanted to live an alternative life in Copenhagen. “It is interesting to see how as artists we can help establish a dialogue between these and other people.”

 It is strange to be talking here in Copenhagen, where delegates from all over the world are discussing, in the new and modern wing of the remarkable Bella Centre, an agreement that will not materialise. Clashes among poor and the rich countries have prevented humankind from taking radical steps to save the planet from climate catastrophe. Doesn’t he feel frustrated, like many others, that yet again, the political class has let us down?

 “It is a failure but also a success because there are more than 100 nations trying to establish a dialogue. (...) There should be more meetings like this one, in two months time, and then again in another two months time” until an agreement is finally reached.

 The balloon has run out of air and needs to be refilled, so more people can enter it and experience the wobbly surface and the dialogue. Maybe his spheres will not save the world, but they give you an idea of what it is possible if people talk. At least, that is what Tomás believes. And who are we to disagree?

Listen to and audio podcast with Tomás Saraceno

When Ecuador’s President, Rafael Correa,  first made the announcement a couple of years ago, the best he could get from people “in the know” was a patronising smile. And there were those who believed that his idea was the result of a feverish imagination, a loony leftie president having a go at the devilish west.

 The whole thing was very simple: Ecuador has vast reserves of oil in the Amazon, and it needs to exploit that oil because it’s a poor country and oil is its main source of income. But oil is a fossil fuel and climate change has become a huge global concern. So, if the world doesn’t want Ecuador to use the oil and increase its emissions of greenhouse gases, give it the income it would have earned if it had gone ahead and extracted the oil.

 As I said earlier, they laughed at Correa at the time. But nobody is laughing now. Because that proposal is currently under discussion between the Ecuadorian government and international donors. And Quito expects soon to sign an agreement about it with the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme).

 The Yasuní-ITT project, named after the Amazonian national park where the oil in question is located, has received support from NGOs, the German Government and the UNDP.

 The Yasuní region is situated in the western Amazon region of Ecuador. Its beauty is breathtaking and it houses a wealth of biodiversity. When I visited the region in 1996, the local indigenous community, the Huaoranis, were struggling to come to terms with the fact that oil companies were there to stay and they had to compromise, without losing their identity. It was not easy. And many Huorani communities wanted nothing at all to do with the white man; they wanted to remain isolated and uncontacted. It was a terrible situation because the issue had divided communities that, in the past, had lived together in relative harmony.

 So, when the Ecuadorian government proposes to leave the oil reserves buried underground forever, it plans not only to help conserve the planet and its flora and fauna but also  – and this is just as important – to protect those indigenous nations who want to remain as the sentinels of the forest.

Yasuní has reserves of 900 million barrels of heavy crude oil. They have  a production potential of 407 million metric tons of CO2. What the Ecuadorian government wants to get from outside the country is at least 50% of the revenue that the oil would have produced. A Guarantee Certificate (GC) will ensure that donors (UN, governments, NGOs, individuals, etc.) know that their money is being invested in forest protection, social development and protection of water resources. And that Ecuador does not have to divert money into these tasks that it urgently needs for national development.

 Ecuador’s Foreign Minister, Fender Falconí, got very animated when he told us about the Yasuni-ITT initiative during his talk in the Red Room of the People’s Summit here in Copenhagen. However, as was inevitable, he had to face questions about the practicalities of the scheme.

 What if a future government decides that, due to an increase in the price of oil, it wants after all to extract the oil in the Yasuní region, despite the agreement? I asked.

 They have it all figured out, these Ecuadorians. The GCs are legally-binding documents. Furthermore, there are other provisions. If a government decides to extract the oil, the state immediately stops receiving the money due to them in the agreement. From the moment such an announcement is made to the moment the first barrel is extracted, five years would have to pass, because of the complexities of the exploration and exploitation process. The government would lose five years-worth of income. A sizeable sum. And one that Ecuador can’t afford to lose.

 A Colombian participant stood up to ask the Minister if he could talk to the government in Bogota, please, to do the same. A German Green MP gave a short speech about how exciting it is for her country to support the initiative.  And I couldn’t help but think about my own reaction when I read President Correa’s announcement.

 It was a strange feeling. When I visited the Yasuní National Park 13 years ago, and I spoke to Huaorani communities, I believed that the oil companies would end up taking over this beautiful region at the expense of their inhabitants. So, when I read President Correa’s proposal, I smiled too.  

 There is also a political dimension to the proposal. The West keeps banging on about how developing countries have also responsibilities in terms of reducing their own emissions, despite the fact that Ecuador contributes with less than 0.35% to the global  emissions of CO2. Well, there you go, say the Ecuadorians, we will prevent more than 400 million metric tons of CO2 from polluting the atmosphere if you also take your share of the responsibility and help finance the scheme.

 Today, the proposal has the seal of approval of the UNDP, the support of the German Government and reputable NGOs, and the backing of 85% of Ecuadorians. Not much of a room for self-indulgent scepticism then.

 The Minister had said earlier that he had felt the need to leave Bella Centre, where official delegations are negotiating on how not to reach an agreement on climate change, to visit the Red Room in the People’s Summit. “Perhaps you understand now why I felt that”, he said. How right he was.

Listen to Maria Fernanda Espinoza, Ecuador Minister for Patrimony

“Go back to work!”. This was the order delivered by the Danish hosts of the Climate Change Summit to the official delegates from the Third World countries – or developing countries, as they often call themselves -- and it could not have been clearer. Trouble is that the developing countries delegations, mainly Africans, threatened to abandon the conference if the Kyoto Protocol was not discussed.  Delegates are not here to protest or do walk-outs, said the Danes. That is the role of the so-called trouble makers who disrupted the peaceful city during the weekend with their chants, slogans and, in some cases, bricks-on-windows tactics. Protests are for those who did not get accreditation.

 And yet, in response to the ambiguous attitude of the hosts and the reluctance of the rich to take responsibility for the climatic mess we are in, that is precisely what some developing countries are threatening to do: leave the conference because the Kyoto Protocol is not being discussed, despite the fact that the Treaty is only two years away from its sell-by-date. The frustration is obvious. There is simply no progress. And everything is made worse by the disorganisation. Even those who are entitled to get into the conference hall are not managing to do it. A Paraguayan delegate phoned me to apologise for not turning up for an interview because she had spent four hours queuing in Bella Centre, despite the fact that she is a top adviser to Paraguay’s environment minister. She never got in.

 In the meantime, there is amazing life and vigour outside the main conference hall. The alternative conference is so dynamic that many official delegates have chosen to spend time there because here there are real people, representatives of grassroots communities, farmers, peasants, activists who did not discover the issue of climate change because they ran out of political ideas, but because they live in regions of the world where drought and floods (take your pick) are devastating lives.

 They are not here to mope around feeling sorry for themselves or simply to protest. They are here to promote solutions, like a system to generate electricity with cow dung, or a vertical garden, a novel idea that uses rain water and old walls as an imaginative way of growing vegetables in the middle of the city. This is, indeed, a Danish invention but India is benefiting.

 Andrea Guzman, a Bolivian young activist who works with Cenprotac, an NGO working in popular education, is in some ways typical. I spotted her not in a conference hall but jumping up and down, covered with dried branches, wearing a feathered hat and with yellow and black paint on her face. Together with other dancers, she turned up singing (rather than shouting a slogan), with a plea: just save the planet. Silly girl, one may say, what difference will it make  to go around in funny clothes while the real law makers are in Bella Centre (or queuing outside...) trying to reach a real solution.

 But once you talk to her, you realise that, behind the disguise, this young woman is doing more than others to change things. She works mainly with women, the first sufferers of climate change. “Just Google climate change” she tells me, “and you will find that women appear first as victims”.  And she is emphatic: “most of the victims in the Asian tsunami were women”.

 She tells me that for millions of people climate change has become a question of survival: “if you have very little water, you give it enormous priority and treat it with great care. Women have to walk long distances to collect water and, once again, they are the first to suffer if the water runs out, as a result of climate change”.

 For Andrea, the issue of climate change has been dehumanised. There is no consideration for those people who are suffering the consequences of global warming and politicians are not taking the right decisions.

 I ask her a predictable question: “what role do you think women should play in the issue of climate change?”. She looks a bit irritated: “it is not a question of playing a role; it’s a question of been part of the process”.

 She tells me that they are not asking for billions of dollars to adapt to climate change in Bolivia, for they are already doing it because they simply can’t afford to wait until the men and women in grey suits make decisions. “We dig wells, use fewer plastic bags and do much else”, she tells me.

 She is even critical of her own  government because macho attitudes still prevail. “They talk about women as if we were the Pachamama (Mother Earth, in Quechua) because of our fertility, but these are only words”, she tells me.

 We ended our talk because even busy Bolivian activists dressed to dance have to have lunch. She gives me a smile behind the paint and says goodbye. She does not need to queue for hours to make   her point; she is already where she wants to be.

Listen the testimony of Andrea Guzman (in Spanish):

When you arrive to Copenhagen in December, you could be forgiven for believing that the issue of global warming has been somehow exaggerated. This is a typical winter month: cold air, snow, short days and long nights. After all, we have been told that by scientists the temperature is increasing and that we are likely to have more hot years in the future.

However, things are not that simple. And you only need to listen to the delegations of developing countries to realise that global warming is happening and that a normal northern European winter does not justify scepticism.

In the case of Denmark, summers have been hotter than usual in the last decade and winters have been less cold. So, to have a “normal” winter day or week does not make a difference tp the argument.

You don’t need to go to Bella Centre, where the official delegations are discussing a possible agreement, to find out about climate change-induced suffering in the real world. Many organisation that haven’t got accreditation passes around their necks have a lot of important things to say. A sporting complex has been turned into a debate forum in the centre of Copenhagen and representatives from grassroots organisations and NGOs are discussing the solutions that they have found on the ground to help them to survive, despite the indecision of their political leaders. There is a huge range, from cow-dung systems that generate electricity in rural Tanzania to underground manual irrigation systems in India that mean that they don’t have to use petrol-fuelled machines which emit CO2 and are expensive.

“Climate Change Violates Human Rights”says one publication. “The solution we now need” claims a magazine about renewable energy. The big slogan that is emerging is: “System Change, not Climate Change”. Indeed that was the most popular slogan heard during the big demonstration at the weekend.

Critics in the Danish media say that the alternative forum is no more than a fringe group of lefties with nothing better to do with their time. And yet the meeting halls are always full and people who would not have bothered to think about climate change before attend the talks and ask questions.

Indigenous organisations from Paraguay or farmers from Argentina have stands where they tell you that their lands are drying out and that their communities are shrinking to small villages because they can no longer grow what is needed to feed the cities.

They call all this the People’s Summit. The name may sound pretentious and exaggerated, but it rings true when you hear their stories.

As happens on occasions like this, there is always an element of irony.

I am staying with a small community of people who have built an alternative way of life by building houses that try to avoid the use of fossil fuels to keep out the cold Danish winter, by producing their own vegetables in tidy allotments and by shopping in a small community shop instead of in the big Danish supermarkets which are 10 minutes walk away. But, when you stand in the middle of the road, reality hits you. Not far away, big chimneys from power stations emit a white steam that goes to the atmosphere. “It’s not smoke”, I am told, “it’s vapour”. And yet, though many of them do not know it, that vapour is also a greenhouse gas.

Nobody knows at this stage if there will be an agreement a few kilometres away in the Bella Centre. But there are too many stories being told in the People’s Summit by those who know for me to doubt that what is at stake is hugely important. Uniquely important. We ignore these stories at our peril. Despite the cold nights and the snow.

When I first arrived in Copenhagen in January 1984, Denmark looked to my eyes like a peaceful, liberal unpretentious country, with a population of 5 million people spread over 76 islands and one peninsula. Aware, as they are, of the limitations of their language (which is only spoken in Denmark and parts of Greenland and Iceland), most Danes speak German, English and/or French. They are cosmopolitan and sophisticated, live in flats clustered in not very large cities, or in cottages in the countryside.

It seemed to me that Danes were happy with their lack of political relevance in the European Union, which has giants like Germany and France. They were friendly with foreigners, had a highly taxed economy but enjoyed, for instance, medical services that would be the envy of the British NHS and voted Social Democrat. Sometimes they voted Conservative, but the right in Denmark looks dangerously liberal compare to their counterparts in other European countries.

Things have changed since 1984. A society which welcomed refugees from all over the world has now some of the harshest anti-immigration laws in the European Union. The far-right has grown.  And, like any industrialised country, they have suffered recession, and one of the most generous social welfare systems in the continent is now stretched to the limit.

Copenhagen has the cleanest air because of the Danish tendency to ride bicycles rather than cramp together in underground trains or buses. Cyclists have their own roads, with their own traffic lights and clear rules that protect them from rapacious four-by-four vehicles or irresponsible bus drivers. I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I used public transport, happy as I was with an old and rusty bicycle that took me everywhere. When I was there, lakes froze In winter, to the delight of kids, and roads became death traps because of black ice. But today the winter snows have been replaced by heavy rain, which means many lowlands are flooded more often than not. No more skating on the canals that crisscross Copenhagen. There are good reasons why Danes are worrying about climate change...

Who would have thought that, 21 years later, I would return to Copenhagen just as it has become the centre of the world?  Because at the moment Copenhagen is, indeed, the centre of the world. Danes have taken seriously their job as hosts of the crucial COP15 summit and, in doing so, they have had to come to terms with the fact that, being a small city, Copenhagen is hardly equipped to cope with hordes of activists, official delegates and journalists. They have had to stop issuing accreditation to journalists and NGOs because their Bella Centre, as big as it is, can’t cope with the crowds. And the city, a charming mix of copper-domed palaces and red-bricked buildings, seems overwhelmed by a combination of colours, languages and chants.

Denmark has been preparing for this event ever since they were chosen to host the 15th Conference of the Parties. They created climate attachés in five of their biggest embassies in the world and organised the so-called Greenland Dialogue, a gathering of 20 environment ministers in 2005, invited to see with their own eyes the effects of global warming on one the coldest regions in the planet. They do not want their country to be associated with failure to reach an agreement. Even though things don’t look good, they are still insisting that a legally-binding accord is possible. “The time is up”, says Connie Hedegaard, the Danish Minister designated to lead COP15.

Whatever the outcome of this crucial summit, the fact is that history will point to Copenhagen as the city where the world started to debate more seriously than ever an issue that is killing the planet and many of those who live in it. Danes know that, and before they go back to the routine of bicycles and peaceful Christmases, they want to make sure that their children have a lake where they can skate with a big smile on their faces.

Voices from Copenhagen

Pablo Solon, Bolivian Ambassador at the UN and member of the Bolivian delegation in COP15