Outside Bella Centre, the venue of the climate talks to reduce earth-warming greenhouse gases, a poster summed up the mood of environment groups.

“How can you decide about us without us?” read a placard of the Climate Justice group.

Only a thousand representatives from non-government organisations were allowed into Bella Centre today, though the number of activists who have converged at the Danish capital is said to be around 20,000.

On Friday when world leaders meet to decide the future of the planet, the number will whittle down to 90. In other words, fewer than one out of every 200 NGO delegates — invited and accredited — will be able to attend the summit.

Sources in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said close to 35,000, including representatives of NGOs and governments, had been given clearances for attending the summit. Bella Centre, however, has room for only 15,000.

“We never expected so many people to come,” UNFCCC media co-ordinator Alex Wuestenhagen told The Telegraph.

Asked why so many NGO activists were being kept out of the summit, Wuestenhagen cited “security concerns”.

Yesterday, police cracked down on a procession of thousands of NGO representatives when they tried to force their way into Bella Centre to protest the slow pace of talks.

“They invited all of us to Copenhagen and, for the last two years, have been urging people to come. Now they are refusing entry,” fumed Hector Pistache, a Friends of Earth activist from Spain.

The situation has prompted a collection of 50 NGOs to write an open letter to UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer and summit president Lars Lokke Rasmussen.

“It is unacceptable… we hope that the UNFCCC secretariat will recognise and reverse this undemocratic action,” the letter says.

As an effort at damage control, the Danish foreign ministry made an alternative arrangement for accredited NGOs and Inter-Governmental Organisations. But hardly 100 NGO representatives were at Forum, the alternative hall 5km from Bella Centre, on Thursday.

TALKING heads

Heads of state on Thursday punctuated 10 days of demanding yet unyielding negotiations at the Copenhagen climate conference with pleas for an accord, peppering their appeals with references to grandchildren, the planet, and divinity.

“Copenhagen is a hope ... it has to be realised. Don’t disappoint your citizens, your children. Let us together go home and bring happiness to people,” said Israeli President Shimon Peres, addressing the climate change conference.

The heads of state segment of the conference opened on Thursday. “I’ve lived through upheavals of the 20th century — great tragedies and great miracles,” said Peres, 86. “I have grandchildren. They’re my guide for the future. As their grandfather, I am obliged — like other leaders — to make the world clean, hopeful, and meaningful. Copenhagen has to match expectations.”

Disagreements over emissions reductions targets for the industrialised countries and an uncertainty over finance from the rich countries to the developing countries to help them adapt and deal with climate change have blocked progress in the talks.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questioned whether climate was an exclusively environmental issue or whether it had “cultural or behavioural dimensions”. “The US has 5 per cent of world population, but consumes 25 per cent of oil and energy and 40 per cent of total motor vehicles ... the developed countries with 20 per cent of the population uses up 85 per cent of the energy resources,” Ahmadinejad said. “What will happen if other countries follow the same policies and behaviour?”