US Bishops, CRS Urge Grant-First Climate Finance at COP31
Days before the Nov. 9–20 Antalya summit, their joint statement ties new funds to avoiding debt burdens and protecting workers’ dignity.
On November 6, 2026, Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre of Louisville, chair of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development; Bishop A. Elias Zaidan, chair of the USCCB Committee on International Justice and Peace; and Sean Callahan, president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services issued a joint statement ahead of the United Nations climate conference COP31.
The gathering runs November 9–20, 2026, in Antalya, Turkey, under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which has been in force since 1994 and counts 198 parties. Negotiators are expected to address limits on global temperature rise, adaptation to extreme weather, movement beyond fossil fuels, cuts in greenhouse gas pollution, and climate finance for developing countries.
Grants Over Loans, Adaptation, Just Transition
The central appeal is clear: “We urge world leaders and institutions to deliver additional climate finance that prioritizes grants over loans so that poor countries can invest in resilience and adaptation without the weight of more debt.”
The three leaders also call on negotiators to agree on how progress on adaptation will be measured within the Global Goal on Adaptation, and to finalize a “just transition” mechanism that gives developing countries expertise, cooperation, and funding as they move away from fossil fuels. That transition, they stress, “should center on protecting the dignity of every worker, family, and community affected.”
They build on Pope Leo XIV’s message to the previous year’s COP30, in which he said that creation is “crying out in floods, droughts, storms and relentless heat,” that while nations have made progress, “it is not enough,” and that the Paris Agreement is not failing so much as “our collective response to it,” adding that “to overlook communities most exposed to climate change is to deny our shared humanity.”
The Cry of the Earth and the Poor
The statement affirms that “the global Church continues to witness the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor,” and notes that “young people in particular are leading this response, demanding climate justice for their generation and generations to come.”
It closes by asking leaders to “leave Antalya having matched the scale of their commitments to the scale of the need,” remembering that “behind every number is a family making difficult, daily decisions on survival amidst more extreme, erratic, and frequent climate shocks.”
A separate yet complementary Climate Action Agenda will also address food and health, electricity, waste reduction, and making cities more resilient to climate change.
For Catholics formed by the Church’s teaching on creation and the preferential option for the poor, the joint appeal links concrete negotiating demands—grant-based finance, measurable adaptation, and a just transition—to the dignity of those already living with climate shocks.