Another Global Warming Is Possible: Antalya, Water, and Climate Justice

Joining the General Board of Church and Society delegation virtually from New York for COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, I found myself returning to several themes that emerged on our delegation’s first day of engagement. Water remains overlooked in climate decision-making. Too often, as one colleague observed, “we only talk to one another.” We also recognized that water is not merely an ocean issue but one that touches food, health, energy, sanitation, and infrastructure. Equally important was the conviction that children and youth must be engaged not only as beneficiaries of climate action but also as partners in shaping it.

These observations illuminate some of the most pressing questions facing the global climate movement today. They remind me that climate justice is not separate from other justice struggles. It is a defining expression of justice in our time.

In Antalya, local realities are demanding global attention. Climate change is planetary, but people experience it locally through failed harvests, polluted water, floods, droughts, lost livelihoods, and displacement. That is why I speak of the glocal: local and global realities coexisting in Antalya’s conversations.

A water crisis quickly becomes a food crisis. A food crisis becomes a health crisis. A health crisis becomes an economic and social crisis. Water links climate, development, health, migration, peace, and security. To speak of water, therefore, is to speak of justice.

As our delegation reflected on water’s centrality, I returned to two biblical texts that have long shaped my understanding of justice. Isaiah declares, “The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever” (Isaiah 32:17). Amos offers one of Scripture’s most enduring images: “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).

These texts belong together. Amos gives us the movement of justice, and Isaiah gives us its purpose. Justice is meant to flow like water, but it is also meant to lead us toward peace, quietness, and trust.

In our own day, the escalating climate crisis threatens all three. The roar of stronger storms, destructive floods, prolonged droughts, wildfires, and environmental degradation often drowns out humanity’s longing for quietness and trust. Communities live with uncertainty about water, crops, homes, livelihoods, and whether future generations will inherit a livable world.

Yet there is something instructive in the nature of water itself. Water seeks its level. It moves toward equilibrium. Justice does the same, correcting dangerous imbalances, addressing inequities, and restoring right relationships among peoples, communities, and the Earth itself. When access to water becomes unequal, when climate disruption disproportionately harms the poor and vulnerable, and when those least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions bear the heaviest burdens, what appears to be an environmental problem is revealed as a profound injustice.

This is why climate justice belongs within the broad constellation of justice-seeking movements that animate our faith and public witness. The water Amos saw flowing through justice, and the quietness and trust Isaiah envisioned converge in our own time as both aspiration and responsibility.

For United Methodists, this responsibility is illuminated by John Wesley’s General Rules. The first, Do No Harm, has become a familiar ethical refrain in climate discussions, both within and beyond the church. Yet the urgency of the climate crisis compels us to the second rule, Do Good. Climate justice requires more than avoiding harm. It demands repair, solidarity, and concrete action.

Climate finance puts that movement into action. If cutting emissions reflects our commitment to do no harm, climate finance reflects our commitment to do good: helping vulnerable communities adapt to droughts and rising seas, recover from storms, strengthen food and water systems, and pursue sustainable futures. It is not charity but tangible justice, recognizing that those who benefited most from carbon-intensive development have greater responsibility to support those bearing its consequences.

Ultimately, Wesley’s first and second rules find their fulfillment in the third: staying in love with God. In a climate-disrupted world, doing no harm and doing good become practical ways to love God, neighbor, and creation.

Several years ago, I wrote that another global warming is possible. I did not mean further atmospheric warming. I meant a warming of human solidarity, public imagination, and political will. The conversations emerging from Antalya remind me that this deeper warming is precisely what our moment requires: not merely the resolve to do less harm, but the courage to do more good.

COP31 matters because it is one of the few places where humanity attempts to act collectively on a planetary challenge. From my vantage point as part of the GBCS delegation, even while participating virtually from New York, one hopeful reality stands out: local agency and local realities are demanding a hearing at the global table. In Antalya, the glocal is asserting itself.

Like the waters of Amos and the vision of Isaiah, this moment calls us toward a future where justice flows and where peace, quietness, and trust may yet be shared by all people, the whole community of life, and the planet whose flourishing is bound to our own.

New York, 10 November 2026

—— Follow our updates throughout COP31, share them with your congregation, and hold in prayer those working to turn commitments into action.