Climate youth leader Greta Thunberg made a surprise visit to the United Nations Climate Conference, just prior to attending a massive climate strike in downtown Madrid today. Ms. Thunberg told the demonstration that “We have been striking for over a year and still basically nothing has happened. The climate crisis is still being ignored by those in power. We cannot go on like this.”

This year’s Youth Day at COP25 took on a greater prominence as youth have driven a global mobilization demanding greater climate action. The greater involvement of youth was recognized in September at the Youth Climate Summit in New York on 21 September. Jayathama Wickramanayke, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, said work was moving along to further the outcomes of the Summit, including the Kwon-Gesh Pledge, which calls on youth to hold their governments and leaders accountable.

The President of this year’s COP is Carolina Schmidt, Chile’s Environment Minister. Today, she was accompanied at a press conference, by Lorena Aguilar, Costa Rica’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It was a departure for the climate COP word, which has a history of being male dominated.