Visitors to Edinburgh's Inverleith House art gallery will be greeted by a golden monkey in the coming weeks as part of a program to raise awareness of climate change.

The 10-meter-high inflatable is the creation of Australian ecological artist Lisa Roet, who creates visual art to draw the public's attention to climate change emergencies.

The Edinburgh sculpture is of a golden snub-nosed monkey. There are five species of snub-nosed monkey and all are at risk of extinction.

The installation will stay in Edinburgh until December 13 as part of the gallery's transformation into Climate House, a three-year program dedicated to the fight against climate change.

Roet's golden monkey installations have previously scaled the Opposite House hotel in Beijing and the Temple House in Chengdu and even the H-Code skyscraper in the center of Hong Kong. 

This hand-painted, inflatable sculpture is one of a series created to highlight the plight of this increasingly endangered species, which Roet hopes will help to educate people about one of the planet's lesser-known primates.

She said: "The Golden snub-nosed monkey is the highest living non-human primate on the planet.

"With its cute, upturned nose, this monkey is revered in Chinese mythology and celebrated globally for its elusive beauty.

"The monkey aims to address issues associated with increasing urbanisation and habitat destruction. Illegal logging, as in many parts of the world, has posed a major threat to the survival of this rare and beautiful monkey."