Greetings from Antalya: COP31 Update #1

Greetings from Antalya, Türkiye, where the 31st UN Climate Change Conference (COP31) opened on November 9. The first day brought logistical and administrative challenges, with participants queuing for hours to collect their accreditation. The General Board of Church and Society is now accredited and on the ground. This first update shares what we heard and why it matters for United Methodists far from Antalya.

Antalya’s call

COP31 President Murat Kurum set the tone: “Restore trust where it is under strain. Put resources to work as needs grow. Close the gap between our promises and people’s lives.” COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago added that “the wealthiest people in all our countries can change their behavior.” People in poverty, he noted, contribute least to climate change and have the least room to adapt. IPCC Chair Sir Jim Skea warned that “climate action without climate science is like a ship without a rudder.”

The tools exist. UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell reported that 90% of large renewable projects are now cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives. Australia’s Chris Bowen backed raising electricity’s share of global energy from a fifth to 35% by 2035. The harder question, raised all day, was whether money and political will reach the people who need them.

Eight years for a sea wall

The Marshall Islands summed up the problem in one example: it took eight years to secure funding for a sea wall, and two to build it. Speaking for the High Ambition Coalition, countries from the Pacific, Africa, Latin America and Europe asked COP31 to respect the science, keep 1.5°C within reach and return to it rapidly if it is overshot, and respond justly through finance and support for loss and damage. The African Group pressed for tripling adaptation finance. Pacific envoys were blunt. Papua New Guinea’s envoy said the Pacific faces half a trillion dollars in climate damages while receiving about $2 billion a year to adapt: “We need to cut the red tape. We need to move climate finance from promises to people.” Fiji’s representative reminded the room that “there cannot be a healthy planet without a healthy ocean.”

From harm to repair

For others, the issue is repair for damage already done. At a press conference on climate reparations, a young advocate from Minnesota, originally from Bahia, Brazil, said she and the COP process are “twins.” She was born on the last day of the first COP, 31 years ago, yet in her view the action promised since then has not followed. “It is up to us to hold our countries accountable,” she said. A speaker from Puerto Rico added that “behind every figure of loss and damage is a family, a story, a life.” The speakers closed with a warning: “If there is no justice, there will be no peace.” That call now carries legal weight. After a campaign started by Pacific Islands law students, the International Court of Justice ruled unanimously in 2025 that states have legal obligations to act on climate change.

Church and Society at the table

Darina Regio, GBCS Director of Environmental Justice, facilitated a breakout group at the UN Climate Change session “World café exchange – Reflection from first annual cycle, with an aim to inform next cycle.” The session reviewed support for countries preparing transparency reports, which show whether governments are keeping their climate pledges. The Paris Agreement has no enforcement mechanism, so these reports are among the main tools for accountability. Delegates from nine countries described scattered data, staff turnover, and funding that is slow and short-term. As of September 30, 2026, only 83 of the 122 countries receiving Global Environment Facility support had submitted their first report. The session chair noted that observers provide critical information to the process. The role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in national reporting did not come up in the discussion.

Who gets counted

The question of who is counted ran through the side events. Young climate leaders described a “triple glass ceiling”: grants that are small, short and rigid. Young feminist leaders reported that national climate plans are too often “written about women and girls, not with them.” They called the $652 million funding gap facing youth-led organizations “a gap in commitment, not capacity.”

Indigenous leaders and researchers from Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile and California challenged the idea that hydropower is clean energy. Speakers explained that dams and reservoirs release methane that is undercounted in climate accounting, and that dam projects have displaced communities. In Costa Rica, Bröran communities have stopped three proposed dams amid land conflicts that turned deadly when land defender Jerhy Rivera was killed in 2020. “When rivers are dammed, people are incarcerated,” said Thomas Joseph of the Indigenous Environmental Network. Fernanda Purrán of Rios to Rivers asked of every project labeled green: “Clean for whom and at what cost?”

Closer to home than it looks

A COP Presidency event examined the growing water demands of AI data centers, an issue already reaching communities across the United States. Transport experts warned that their sector is “going faster in the wrong direction” than other sectors, with cities leading where national governments lag. At the Italy Pavilion, researchers noted that the Mediterranean is projected to warm about 20% faster than the global average by the end of the century. Energy efficiency there has improved 18% in the wealthier north since 2015 but only 3% in the south.

Why this matters for United Methodists

COP31 can feel far away, but the questions raised in Antalya are ones the church already asks: who bears the cost, who receives repair, and who has a voice. John Wesley’s General Rules begin with “do no harm.” Day one showed what continued harm looks like: a sea wall that took a decade, a family behind a statistic, a river dammed for “clean” energy. United Methodists in the Philippines, across Africa and in Europe live with these impacts now. In the United States, they reach us through energy bills, water supplies and data centers built near our homes. As the US government steps back from international climate cooperation, the witness of churches matters more.

That is why GBCS is in Antalya: being present meant contributing to UN recommendations on day one and carrying the voices of those most affected into the rooms where decisions are made.

Follow our updates throughout COP31, share them with your congregation, and hold in prayer the communities whose lives depend on what is decided here.