After more than two weeks of negotiations, punctuated by raucous protests and constant reminders about the need to move faster, bleary-eyed negotiators barely mustered enthusiasm for the comprise they had patched together, while raising grievances about the many issues that remain unresolved.

At a gathering where the mantra “Time for Action” was plastered throughout the hallways and on the walls, the talks failed to achieve their primary goals. Central among them: convincing the world’s largest carbon-emitting countries to pledge to more aggressively tackle climate change beginning in 2020.

“We are not satisfied,” the chair of the meeting, Chilean Environment Minister Carolina Schmidt said. “The agreements reached by the parties are not enough.”

Delegates from nearly 200 nations wrestled for more than 40 hours past their planned deadline – making these the longest in the 25-year history of these talks – even as workers broke down parts of the sprawling conference hall, food vendors closed and all but the most essential negotiators went home.

As officials scrambled to finalize a complex set of rules to implement the 2015 Paris climate accord, a handful of larger-emitting countries squared off again and again against smaller, more vulnerable ones. In particular, negotiators came to loggerheads while crafting the rules around a fair and transparent global carbon trading system, and pushed the issue to next year. Fights also dragged out about how to provide funding to poorer nations already coping with rising seas, crippling droughts and other consequences of climate change.

The painstaking pace of the talks stood in contrast to the mass demonstrations and vehement pleas from young activists, some of whom staged protests inside the conference hall and accused world leaders of neglecting the most significant challenge facing humanity.

“This is the biggest disconnect between this process and what’s going on in the real world that I’ve seen,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, who has been attending climate talks since the early 1990s.

“You have the science crystal on where we need to go. You have the youth and others stepping up around the world in the streets pressing for action,” he added. “It’s like we’re in a sealed vacuum chamber in here, and no one is perceiving what is happening out there – what the science says and what people are demanding.”

Sunday’s outcome underscored how, only four years after the Paris agreement produced a moment of global solidarity, international divisions and a lack of momentum threaten the effort to limit the warming of the Earth to dangerous levels.

“The can-do spirit that birthed the Paris Agreement feels like a distant memory today,” Helen Mountford, a climate expert for the World Resources Institute who watched the talks closely in Spain, said in a statement Sunday.

The tepid progress in Spain sets up a critical moment ahead of next year’s gathering in Glasgow, when countries had been asked to show up with more ambitious pledges to slash their carbon footprints.

But Sunday’s conclusion raised new doubts about the prospects on whether key nations would rise to that challenge. Already, many countries are not living up to the promises they made in Paris in 2015, when world leaders vowed to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) – and to try to remain below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The world already has warmed more than 1 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and current pledges would put the world on a trajectory to warm more than 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

In Madrid, a cross-section of small and developing countries accused the United States and others, such as Brazil and Australia, of obstructing key parts of the negotiations and undermining the spirit and goals of the Paris accord. Countries already hard hit by climate change argued that large emitters continue to dawdle, even as other imperiled nations face intensifying cyclones, increased flooding and other climate-related catastrophes.

“This is an absolute tragedy and a travesty,” Ian Fry, the climate change ambassador from the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, told fellow negotiators. Fry specifically pointed to the U.S. for playing a destructive role in the talks.

The U.S. is in its final year as part of the international agreement it once helped spearhead. The Trump administration has said it officially will withdraw from the Paris accord on Nov. 4, 2020 – the day after the U.S. presidential election.

As delegates voted on the final texts, many seats were empty: Some negotiators, tired and with flights to catch, had simply gone home. Those who remained had technical trouble retrieving the documents, even as they voted on them, and continually stopped the proceedings to say they needed help.

“If you refresh, maybe?” Schmidt said from the dais.

Later, as countries were offering statements, Norway’s climate minister offered the floor to a 24-year-old member of the delegation, who had taken a 2-1/2 day train ride to Madrid to reduce her carbon footprint.

“Our leaders need to step up,” Sofie Nordvik said. “Please you are solutions.”

This event in Madrid was not envisioned as a landmark moment in the implementation of the Paris accord. Negotiators had primarily been asked to iron out a set of complex but important details about how the deal will be implemented.

At the same time, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spent much of this year pleading with countries to leave here having pledged to produce more aggressive plans to combat global warming over the coming year.

“The point of no-return is no longer over the horizon. It is in sight and hurtling towards us,” he said as the climate talks convened, adding that the “world’s largest emitters are not pulling their weight.”

In the end, the promises of future action he had hoped for simply did not emerge.

One question that proved particularly contentious at the talks was carbon trading, an unresolved but crucial aspect of the Paris agreement. Some countries accused Brazil and others of pushing for accounting loopholes that they said would weaken transparency and mask actual emissions in a way that would undermine the integrity of the accord.

After days of a stalemate, officials failed to find a consensus and ultimately punted any resolution on the issue, just as they had done a year ago – a result that many negotiators described as a major disappointment.

The international gridlock comes at a time when scientists have made clear there is no longer time for delay, especially after a decade in which emissions continued to rise.

Last month, a U.N. report found that global greenhouse gas emissions must begin falling by 7.6% each year beginning in 2020 to meet the most ambitious aims of the Paris climate accord. Instead, global emissions are projected to hit another record-high in 2019.

The U.N.-led Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this year detailed how warming is already threatening food and water supplies, turning arable land to desert, killing coral reefs and supercharging monster storms. A new federal assessment on Tuesday found that the Arctic might already have crossed a key threshold and could become a contributor to global carbon emissions as huge amounts of permafrost thaw.

One of the few promising developments during the talks came not from Madrid, but from Brussels, where European leaders on Friday pledged to eliminate their carbon footprint by 2050. Though the European Union talks revealed divisions of their own – coal-reliant Poland refrained from signing on for now – they provided a rare example of one of the world’s big emitters taking steps to draw up more ambitious reductions goals.

Roughly 80 countries have already committed to setting more ambitious targets in 2020, but the vast majority are small and developing nations that account for barely 10% of the world’s emissions.

During the talks, officials from many of those small countries spoke with exasperation about the pace and tenor of the proceedings, saying they had been excluded from key negotiations and stonewalled by major-emitting nations. But the most visceral displays of outrage came from young protestors, who held press conferences, chanted, and pressed – often in vain – for sit-downs with negotiators.

The teenagers were part of a broader group that has staged climate strikes across the world this year, many of them inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

“I am losing all of my trust in the establishment and the people who are leading this world,” said Jonathan Palash-Mizner, 17, one of the American leaders of Extinction Rebellion, an environmental movement.

As the negotiations headed toward their drawn-out conclusion, some 300 people joined in the middle of the convention hall, with one young speaker after the next holding a megaphone and calling for “climate justice.”

Outside, they gathered with others in front of the cavernous facility. “The oceans are rising and so are we!” they chanted.

But a day, a night and another morning later, when negotiators finally gaveled the divisive conference to a close, the protesters were long gone.

All that remained were the now-empty hallways, dead and dying potted trees and signs that people had passed each day as they exited the nearby subway, warning that time was running short.

“Tick tock,” they read. “Tick tock.”

Though he has sworn off fundraising for his own campaign, he has made himself a top Democratic Party donor in just the past few weeks, quietly giving the party $625,000 to distribute to infrastructure efforts atop the $175,000 required of all candidates for access to the Democratic National Committee’s voter data. In coming days, his campaign plans to rally wealthy New York activists and donors to give more money to state parties for their programs to register and turn out voters.

Since launching his campaign about a month ago, Bloomberg has committed nearly $250 million to his own campaign advertising and other projects to help the party in November 2020.

Bloomberg’s aides say he is running for president on his executive experience as a mayor, chief executive officer and benefactor, not his money. But they are nonetheless using his enormous wealth – $55 billion, according to Forbes – to win friends and goodwill in the party.

When he travels, large sums of his money tend to precede him or get left in his wake. When he makes phone calls, rank-and-file Democratic leaders buzz with excitement at the possibility of a check. It is a distinct advantage that no other candidate has ever had – an effectively bottomless pocketbook to achieve his aims of making himself the nominee and defeating President Trump.

Bloomberg’s new spending builds on a spree that extends back years, reflecting his political priorities and benefiting groups with influence in determining the Democratic nomination Bloomberg is now seeking.

He has blanketed political committees, liberal interest groups, swing-state cities and key politicians with his money, donating more than $8 billion to philanthropy over his lifetime and hundreds of millions more to political causes. He ranks as a top donor to influential groups like the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood and the League of Conservation Voters.

When he began talking with members of the Texas Democratic Party before Thanksgiving, the promise of a coinciding check hung heavily in the air. Bloomberg’s aides told them he was running not just for the nomination, but to build the state party and to increase Democratic turnout, a project for which he has committed at least $15 million nationwide. Party leaders were delighted.

“We have 2 million Hispanics in this state that are not voting and we need to get them engaged,” Gilberto Hinojosa, the state party chair, said after meeting with Bloomberg on Dec. 7 in Plano, Texas.

Bloomberg is not above boasting about his resources.

“I realize some people will say, ‘Do we really want a general election between two New York billionaires?’ To which I say, ‘Who’s the other one?” Bloomberg joked in his address to the Texas party. “If ever there was someone who is all hat and no cattle, it is Donald Trump.”

Not counting the unknown cost of his campaign staff or overhead, he has already committed more than $95 million to broadcast ads for his campaign, $100 million to digital spending against Trump in swing states, $15 million or more for voter registration and protection efforts, and the $10 million he has given to defend Democratic House members deemed vulnerable because of the party’s impeachment effort.

Most of the money he has donated elsewhere comes without direct strings attached to his presidential effort. He gave $500,000 to former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ unsuccessful effort in 2018, along with much more to Emily’s List, a group that supports only female candidates who favor abortion rights, like Abrams. This week he sent another $5 million to Abrams’ new voter protection initiative, a part of the $15 million voter effort. Abrams, a potential vice presidential pick for the 2020 ticket, has not yet weighed in with an endorsement.

“Bloomberg’s team has been involved in our world in Georgia for sometime,” said Lauren Groh-Wargo, who is leading the Abrams voter effort. “We had been talking to his team about our efforts at Fair Fight all year.”

In other cases, Bloomberg’s money has led to relationships that have already paid off for the campaign. Bloomberg’s two campaign co-chairs, Columbia, South Carolina, Mayor Steve Benjamin and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, have both worked closely with Bloomberg-funded projects to improve city governments.

He is the only candidate who will be able to travel to key cities in swing states, like Detroit, Durham, North Carolia, and Minneapolis, and boast about the city programs he is funding. And this spring he announced two $10 million grants with the governors of Pennsylvania and Michigan – two of the three usually Democratic states Trump flipped in 2016 – to fight opioid addiction.

When Bloomberg flew this week to Madrid to attend the United Nations’ annual climate negotiations, he was able to present a study he funded on climate change and meet with the prime minister of Spain. Then he flew to California, where he appeared with former governor Jerry Brown, another partner in a Bloomberg-funded climate change project.

Brown, who ran for president three times and remains one of California’s most popular Democrats, did not offer an endorsement, but he did praise Bloomberg’s environmental work.

“There is a deep well of goodwill that exists out there,” said Benjamin, the past president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which Bloomberg has also funded. “He has reframed the debate around making sure that we are attacking some of the most challenging and pernicious issues.”

Last year, the exchange of attention and money was more explicit. A quick trip to Nevada in September 2018, when Bloomberg was exploring an presidential run, yielded a $10,000 donation to then-gubernatorial candidate Steve Sisolak. A visit to New Hampshire in October produced $15,000 for the state Democratic Party. A tour through Pennsylvania before Election Day was preceded by a $10,000 check to the state party, thousands more for Sen. Robert Casey Jr. and $250,000 for Tom Wolf, the party’s gubernatorial candidate, who won his contest.

At times, Bloomberg’s money reaches deeply into the Democratic infrastructure, as the groups he supports in turn support others with his money. In the last election cycle, he gave millions of dollars as a private citizen to explicitly political groups that were early endorsers of Hillary Clinton in 2016, including Emily’s List; VoteVets, which recently endorsed South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg for president; and the League of Conservation Voters, a group that supports candidates based on their environmental records.

Spokeswomen for Emily’s List and the LCV said they chose to withhold endorsements early in this presidential campaign, before Bloomberg entered the race. “We wanted to not endorse anytime soon and really create a race to the top when it comes to the climate crisis,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, LCV’ssenior vice president of government affairs

Two groups Bloomberg largely funds to counter the National Rifle Association, the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and its sister Action Fund, collectively took in about $63 million in 2017, the latest year for which tax forms are available. He is the largest donor, say people familiar with the financing, but has not disclosed his exact contribution.

A significant share of that money was doled out to other political groups – $130,000 to the Democratic Governors Association, $25,000 to the Nevada State Democratic Party, $25,000 to the Fraternal Order of Police and $25,000 to a group that supports Democratic legislative campaigns.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s campaign received $1.26 million that year from the Everytown Action Fund, and the state’s Attorney General Mark Herring received $700,000. The Support Fund also gave $5,000 to both the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and $15,000 to the National LGBTQ Task Force.

In 2017 and 2018, Bloomberg’s family foundation spent more than $900 million on philanthropic efforts, including millions of dollars given to politically sensitive groups like Planned Parenthood, a provider of family planning and abortion services, and groups that are trying to curb global warming or promote charter schools. He personally gave an additional $1.5 million to a political action committee affiliated with Planned Parenthood.

A spokesman for the Sierra Club, which received $8 million from the foundation in 2018, said Bloomberg’s entry into the race will not change the group’s endorsement process. The group historically avoids picking sides in competitive Democratic primaries, like the one underway now.

“Our endorsements originate from the ground up, with our political team soliciting feedback from across the organization, including our chapters nationwide,” said Sierra Club National Political Director Ariel Hayes.

Planned Parenthood, which endorsed Clinton through its political arm early in the 2016 campaign, did not respond to a request for comment.

In the past, Bloomberg’s political and philanthropic work have been deeply intertwined, but the campaign recently has taken some steps to create a separation.

Many of his top aides, including campaign chair Patricia Harris and political adviser Howard Wolfson, have stepped away from their roles with his philanthropy, and deputies have taken up the task of maintaining ongoing grants for cities, smoking cessation, arts programs and international health efforts. Bloomberg has also separated himself from Everytown decision-making.

“We are going to do everything to avoid even the appearance of a conflict,” said Stu Loeser, a Bloomberg spokesman.

At the same time, Bloomberg and his campaign staff will continue to make decisions on his political contributions, said a person familiar with the arrangement. Advisers say Bloomberg’s presidential effort is not expected to lead to a decline in funding levels for his other priorities.

But other relationships are harder to untangle. The campaign continues to work out of the $45 million headquarters of his philanthropic efforts, which Bloomberg owns and which has served as interim campaign office, and where the annual property tax bill alone is in excess of $1 million, according to city records.

The company he founded and runs initially offered one measure of support for his campaign. The Bloomberg terminals, desktop computers used by tens of thousands of finance professionals around the world, typically emit standard text-based search results for other Democratic candidates, like former vice president Joe Biden and Buttigieg.

But in the first weeks of Bloomberg’s campaign, typing Mike into the search bar immediately loaded Bloomberg’s campaign website and began playing one of his ads, with sound. The feature has since been disabled.

One benefit remains. Bloomberg has been unapologetic about his news company’s decision not to investigate him or any of the Democratic presidential candidates as long as he is running for office.

“They get a paycheck,” Bloomberg told CBS News on Dec. 5. “But with your paycheck come some restrictions and responsibilities.”