‘Total disconnect’: Voices from marathon Madrid climate summit

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A woman carries her luggage past a sign of the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid, Spain, December 14, 2019. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

MADRID (Reuters) – A U.N. climate summit closed on Sunday with major states snubbing calls for tougher action to combat global warming, prompting sharp criticism from smaller countries and environmental activists.

Here are some key quotes from the final days of the COP25 summit:

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres:

“The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation and finance to tackle the climate crisis. We must not give up and I will not give up.”

Sofie Nordvik, Norway’s youth delegates:

“We lack the ambition needed to avoid this climate emergency. Our leaders need to step up. The world would have looked very different if young people were in charge today.”

Zhou Yingmin, China’s lead negotiator:

“The results of the meeting did not meet our expectations… I believe everyone regrets that the result was not proportionate to our efforts.”

Alden Meyer, Union of Concerned Scientists:

“I’ve been attending these climate negotiations since they first started in 1991. But never have I seen the almost total disconnect we’ve seen here at COP25 in Madrid between what the science requires and what the climate negotiations are delivering in terms of meaningful action.”

Carolina Schmidt, president of the talks on behalf of Chile:

“We are all tired.”

“We are of mixed emotions.”

“This has been the longest COP in the history of COPs.”

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