CORCORAN: In a quiet corner of Denmark, lies a plastic fantasy world of perfection – Legoland. It’s a national icon that’s gone global. There are now 62 Lego bricks for every person on the planet. Small, clever and prosperous, Legoland neatly mirror’s Denmark’s self image. Even here, climate change casts a shadow, but also on display are the Danes’ clean green energy solutions.

Out in the real world, the Danes are now going global with another icon. Denmark has become the world leader in wind power technology. With just five and a half million people, the Danes boast that they are one of the greenest, richest and happiest nations on earth.

KATRINE HEILMANN: “Hang out, have fun, dance a bit, laugh make fun of each other – most of the time.”

CORCORAN: They may be in party mode, but 28-year-old Katrine Heilmann and her Gen Y friends take climate change very seriously. For Katrine, it came down to a career choice between the stage and Denmark’s burgeoning green industry.

SUPER: KATRINE HEILMANN (Power Engineer): “I wanted to be an actor but I figured that I would be better in physics so I found this education about energy engineer.”

CORCORAN: Katrine Heilmann is part of the wind power revolution. As an engineer, she keeps the blades spinning. We head out of Copenhagen harbour to Denmark’s first offshore wind farm, built just 9 years ago. Five and a half thousand wind turbines now arc across the country, generating 20% of the nation’s power. The target? An ambitious 50% in fifteen years time.

“Why build the wind park offshore?”

KATRINE HEILMANN: “Because the energy in the wind is higher on sea than on land. The surface of the ocean is not disturbing the winds much so you can get more energy out of the wind.”

CORCORAN: The twenty turbines generate 40 megawatts of power - enough electricity for forty thousand Copenhagen households.

KATRINE HEILMANN: “From the water to the top they are 102 metres high, up to the tip of the wind. I think it’s beautiful.”

CORCORAN: But where Katrine sees beauty and function, other Danes see a blight on the landscape. Another reason why the turbines are out here.

KATRINE HEILMANN: “People don’t like a wind turbine in their backyard.”

CORCORAN: “Why not?”

KATRINE HEILMANN: “They are noisy as you can hear.”

CORCORAN: “They are quite noisy.”

KATRINE HEILMANN: “They are big and large and a lot of people don’t find them very beautiful.”

CORCORAN: On the platform we can see Sweden just 20 kilometres away.

“This is Sweden just over here? And in the distance we can see two nuclear reactors?

KATRINE HEILMANN: “Yeah called Barseback, but they closed them down.”

CORCORAN: These Swedish reactors were mothballed after Danish Government protests that they were too close to Copenhagen. The Danes proudly proclaim a tough anti nuclear stance but the awkward fact is that 8% of Denmark’s energy is imported nuclear power. That’s not the only hypocrisy in Danish power politics. The other issue is the reliance on greenhouse gas emitting coal.

The biggest problem with wind power is its unpredictability and Denmark still relies on coal fired power plants to generate half the country’s energy.

SUPER: KATRINE HEILMANN (Power Engineer): “We need them for stability in the power system. And we need them for if suddenly the wind is gone and then we don’t have any power so we need to run the power plants.”

CORCORAN: But green activists violently disagree. They demand that Denmark end its dependence on coal now. Their solution? A massive increase in wind farms and a cocktail of other renewables. Recently 1,500 protestors marched on this Copenhagen coal fired power station intending to shut it down.

(Translation) PROTESTOR #1: [To police] “Calm down! Calm down! Are you completely out of your mind?

(Translation) PROTESTOR #2: (obscured) “We are doing this for all of us!”

CORCORAN: The confrontation also served as a dress rehearsal for the Climate Change Summit. Danish police displayed zero tolerance, arresting 177 protestors. And there was zero sympathy from the government.

SUPER: CONNIE HEDEGAARD Minister for Climate & Energy: “I think it’s absolutely foolish to try to close down the electricity consumption and energy supply for a whole capital. I don’t accept that kind of things and I mean what was the message? That we should try to be more independent of coal. Okay, that’s not really the hard news. Everybody knows that. We’re working hard to get it.”

CORCORAN: Denmark’s Minister for Climate & Energy, Connie Hedegaard leads by example. There are no limos or bodyguards for this former TV journalist turned politician as she pedals between meetings and parliament, preparing to host the December summit.

While much of the industrialised world now races to catch up with renewable energy, the Danes have been building that capacity for three decades. They were shocked into action by their vulnerability during the 1973 oil crisis.

CONNIE HEDEGAARD: “We were 99% dependent on fossil fuels imported from outside and we had a crisis with the Middle East and we had to do something about it. So for more than 30 years now we have had this focus on energy efficiency and on renewables in order to make people save energy but also in order to enhance our energy independency.”

CORCORAN: Coal still dominates in Denmark’s futuristic power stations. Despite this dependence, the government claims to have reduced the 1990 level carbon emissions by an impressive 14%. The Danes also achieved strong economic growth, while still consuming roughly the same amount of power as they did twenty years ago.

“But they’re still burning coal”.

CONNIE HEDEGAARD: “They are still burning coal and of course in Denmark we do not expect ever to build more new coal-fired plants in Denmark. That is not sort of in the cards.”

CORCORAN: But Greenpeace claims it’s all a political con, that the national carbon targets will only be met by buying offshore credits, that the Green Denmark brand is badly tarnished by coal.

SUPER: TARJEI HAALAND Greenpeace: “We have not much to brag about. I mean we are a very heavily use of coal. If we don’t get rid of that and show how to get rid of that, we have nothing to show to other countries. I mean we are, two years ago we used more coal per capita than the Chinese did.”

CORCORAN: At this vast factory, they can’t turn out the massive wind turbine blades fast enough. The delicate finishing work is a frantic, women-only affair – the company believes men lack the aptitude for fine detail.

About 90% of production is exported. Denmark controls more than a third of the booming international wind turbine market, worth tens of billions of dollars. Generating a huge green industry that didn’t exist 25 years ago.

CONNIE HEDEGAARD: “Well I think that today we have close to thirty thousand jobs related to the wind industry in Denmark.”

CORCORAN: Being green costs money and lots of it. In September, the nation watched live on TV as Denmark’s Crown Prince Frederik officially opened the $700 million dollar Horns Reef offshore wind farm – the world’s largest.

Such projects are only possible due to government subsidies. Carbon taxes are now a hot political issue in many countries, but in Denmark they’ve been a fact of life for years. Danes pay some of the highest taxes in the world.

SUPER: CONNIE HEDEGAARD Minister for Climate & Energy: “For many years we’ve had a CO2 tax even before Kyoto, we had a CO2 tax in Denmark. So when I, back at home, get my electricity bill, I can see the CO2 tax. When I buy fuel for my car, more than half of the price will be taxes so there is a very huge incentive for me, for my household, for me as a citizen and for business to save energy.”

CORCORAN: Beyond Copenhagen, across the wind swept seas, other Danes are seeking alternative energy solutions. Samso Island is billed as Denmark’s model renewable energy community - carbon neutral, self sufficient in electricity. It’s a conservative place, very much in sync with the seasonal rhythms of rural life.

Twelve years ago, Samso won a national contest to become Denmark’s first government assisted carbon neutral community. At first this island of 4,000 people seemed an unlikely bunch of environmentalists.

SUPER: JESPER KJEMS: Samso Energi Akedemi: “You had a depression actually on the island when the project started. You had 100 jobs disappearing because the slaughter house was closing down, so maybe that was a good situation to come with the new project saying do you want to participate in creating new jobs, not in Bangladesh or saving the polar bears in Greenland, but how to save this island, how can we save our local area?”

CORCORAN: The islanders abandoned their dependence on imported oil and electricity. They formed energy co-ops, wind turbines sprouted on land and sea, and soon generated so much power, it was being exported back to the mainland.

For dairy farmer Jorgen Tranberg, the energy island concept is simply good business. Behind the milking shed the new love of his life towers over the landscape.

“And it’s a she?”

JORGEN TRANBERG: “Yes it’s a she. I don’t know why I call her she, maybe it’s more nice than he.”

CORCORAN: “She’s a very big she.”

JORGEN TRANBERG: “Yeah she’s 50 metres high and the blades are 27.”

CORCORAN: “God. So how much electricity does this produce?”

JORGEN TRANBERG: “Oh produces two and a half million kilowatts for five hundred families.”

CORCORAN: “Five hundred families.”

JORGEN TRANBERG: “Or 35 farms like me.”

CORCORAN: “From one turbine?”

JORGEN TRANBERG: “One turbine, yes.”

CORCORAN: At the top the hatch folds back like the cargo bay of a strange rural space shuttle.

“What a view! It’s amazing.”

Jorgen paid the equivalent of one and a quarter million dollars for his turbine and the spectacular view. That was 9 years ago. He’s already got his investment back and makes two hundred thousand dollars a year from the power he supplies to the grid. He says it’s far more profitable than dairy farming.

“Do you think they’re ugly? I hear a lot of people say they’re ugly to look at, they make too much noise, they don’t belong on farmland. What do you say?”

SUPER: JORGEN TRANBERG farmer: “Oh…. [pointing] you see there we can see a place where we burn coal, and there we can see a place where they burn coal, and there you can see a place where they burn coal. What’s most nice? There’s no smoke up from wind turbines you see and the noise, the noise you can hear by yourself, there’s no noise problem.”

CORCORAN: For Jorgen, the blades make the sweet gentle sound of money. You certainly feel the power. The tower shutters with every rotation.

“Do you ever see yourself giving up the cows, the diary farm and just do this? Would you do that?”

JORGEN TRANBERG: “Oh I’m 55 now and when I’m 60 I don’t want to have cows more so maybe I will play golf and have wind turbines. You see that could be good.”

CORCORAN: Back on terra firma, Jesper Kjems is busy selling Energy Island’s biomass generators to the world.

JESPER KJEMS: “You actually just take the straw that was before it was burned in the field, it was given to the animals, so when you have three kilos of straw you have the same amount of energy as one kilo of oil.”

CORCORAN: Hundreds of diplomats, business people and journalists have made the pilgrimage to this high temple of green power and all ask the same question – can these local solutions work globally?

JESPER KJEMS: “A good example is we had the Egyptian Ambassador visiting the island and he was asking okay, I really like this project. It’s nice, I’m impressed. How many people do live here? Well we have four thousand people I told him. Well then he replied that’s two blocks in Cairo, how am I going to do this? Well it’s a big project but we told him then maybe you should start with the two blocks. You need a defined project so start with those two blocks, make them 100% renewable, maybe the next two blocks will follow.”

CORCORAN: It’s easy to dismiss this place as an energy theme park, a kind of Legoland for greenies – but maybe they’re on to something here. Their philosophy? From small beginnings come great things.

JESPER KJEMS: “You can always look at it in a very depressed way and say okay, we’re just a small island. We can’t save the world. But then you have to look at why we’re doing it. We’re not doing it to save the world. We’re not doing it to save China. We’re doing it to save our island.”

CORCORAN: Back on the streets of Copenhagen, we find another solution to that great carbon emitter – the car. Jan Gehl is an internationally renowned urban architect with a simple message – get a bike. From New York to Australia, he’s now hot property, advising on how to unclog urban arteries.

“So how many kilometres of bike paths do you have here?”

JAN GEHL: “There would be 350 km in the city.”

CORCORAN: Denmark’s traditional cycling culture was being choked by cars until authorities finally got serious about bike lanes. The results are extraordinary. In the past decade cyclist numbers have doubled.

SUPER: JAN GEHL Urban planner: “At the moment we have 37% of everybody going to work and studies on their bikes but the goal is, before 2015 to have half of everybody commuting to work on bicycles.”

CORCORAN: And there’s not a hard core, lycra clad mountain biker to be seen, just commuters in street clothes, riding old fashioned rattlers, who aren’t at all deterred by the inclement Nordic weather.

“What’s the motivation? Why should someone leave their car at home and ride a bike on days like today when it’s absolutely freezing? Why should they do that?”

JAN GEHL: “You think it’s freezing (smiling) we think it’s a lovely autumn day. It’s part of policy to have a more lively city, a safer city, a more sustainable city and a city offering more healthy lifestyles.”

CORCORAN: But apparently Danes also like the feel of the wind in their hair, being green has its limits. Authorities don’t dare make helmets compulsory.

JAN GEHL: “If we make it compulsory, every third of all the bicyclists will not be bicycling because there are so many small trips where you wouldn’t bother. There are so many young and beautiful girls who wouldn’t like to have a silly helmet on.”

CORCORAN: The Climate and Energy Minister certainly feels the political wind in her hair. Behind the wheel of a new electric car, she’s got a reputation for being tough and relentlessly on message. Connie Hedegaard is an oddity in the world of environmental politics. A Minister in a conservative government, she’s the driving force behind Denmark’s green agenda, an area traditionally dominated by the left.

CONNIE HEDEGAARD: “I never understood back in the 70s and the 80s, I did not understand why this should be a special leftist issue. Of course it shouldn’t be. And nobody sort of has sort of the right to monopolise this discussion. On the contrary, it’s a huge advantage now that this agenda is also being embraced from business, from big business.”

CORCORAN: In global politics, all roads now lead to Copenhagen. The city will soon host one hundred and ninety two countries for the United Nations sponsored summit on climate change. Will Copenhagen become the byword for a political deal to slash greenhouse gas emissions? Or will this be an opportunity lost?

A lot depends on whether the United States wants to play, and as host of the summit, the pressure will be on Connie Hedegaard to seal the deal.

CONNIE HEDEGAARD: “Actually I believe that the biggest loser if we don’t get this global framework, that will be American business. Why is that? Because China will do this no matter what, in her own way China will be doing this and is already doing a lot of things. Europe is doing this. Japan has announced now we’re doing this no matter what.”

CORCORAN: And out on the streets, there’ll be tens of thousands of protestors, warning that this may be the last chance to come to grips with global warming. And with Danish police now threatening demonstrators with forty days gaol, activists may find that Copenhagen isn’t so wonderful after all.