This project has been built from the Paseo de la Castellana, the great cultural, political and economic axis of Madrid, and has gone beyond, throughout the city and the rest of Spain.
Castellana Verde has been the result of the efforts of institutions, companies, foundations and civil society to mobilize citizens, contributing to the call to action for the climate. In this way, a hundred activities have taken place these days, which have highlighted the transversal nature of climate ambition and the fundamental role that all agents play in the path towards a true structural change of our societies and economies.
Debates beyond the summit
With the objective of acting as a speaker of the aims pursued by the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, institutions such as the Congress of Deputies or the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT), have participated in the Castellana Verde initiative, promoting debates that have served to disseminate these objectives.
In this regard, the Congress of Deputies hosted this week an organized day with the Inter-Parliamentary Union, in which 200 parliamentarians and parliamentarians from around the world listened to some of the leading experts in the fight against climate change, such as Jeffrey Sachs , who made a call for parliaments around the world to promote the necessary legislation to implement some of the objectives of the Summit. Likewise, FECYT has promoted in these weeks gatherings between scientists and journalists about the need to raise awareness among citizens of the urgency of acting against climate change.
Artistic expressions
Art has been another of the main instruments to call the action for the climate in the activities of Castellana Verde. In this area, initiatives such as the exhibition installed at the Atocha station of the renowned photographer Sebastião Salgado stand out, with images of the Brazilian Amazon, which reflect the life of the indigenous communities that live in the main lung of the planet. Salgado also starred in a keynote lecture at the Reina Sofía Museum.
Also, in the Plaza Colón, the sculpture of a polar bear melting between icebergs that are part of its body, has aimed to raise awareness about the need to act on the impact of humanity on the planet. This work by Veronica and Edwin Nogales has been moved from Chile to Madrid on the occasion of COP25 by the Geo Art Regeneration of Wildlife Foundation.
In addition, at the height of the Paseo de la Castellana 13, the sculpture "Talla de la Reina", by the Burgos artisan Humberto Abad, has been located. It is a sculpture that represents the two hands of Queen Juana I, clinging to some bars, and that emulates the prison of Tordesillas. The sculpture, carved in 2006, is made on the trunk of a pine tree from Soria-Burgos, dried as a result of climate change at the summits of the Urbión, at the source of the Duero River. This trunk is about 200 years old, was saved from being crushed to make biomass and has served to reflect on the different contributions of forests and their value chain to the fight against climate change.