Islamic Leaders Urge Muslims to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Islamic scholars and religious leaders are calling the world's Muslim communities to act on climate change, saying they have a religious duty to tackle the Earth's most threatening environmental problem. 

The scholars will present this message next week in a special two-day Islamic symposium in Istanbul, Turkey, which will be attended by Muslim leaders from around the world.  

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“As we are woven into the fabric of the natural world, its gifts are for us to savour – but we have abused these gifts to the extent that climate change is upon us,” reads a draft version of the declaration on climate change to be presented at next week's conference.

The document urges the 1.6 billion Muslims around the world to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and urge governments to take a stronger stance against climate change. 

The conference, which will begin Tuesday, was organized by several religious-environmental groups, namely the U.K.-based Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Islamic Relief Worldwide, the Climate Action Network International and the U.S.-based GreenFaith. 

Shaban Ramadhan Mubaje, the Grand Mufti of Uganda, told reporters ahead of the conference that caring for the environment is pivotal to Islamic teachings. 

“Islam teaches us, ‘man is simply a steward holding whatever is on earth in trust,'” he said. “Man should ensure that we do everything possible to protect for this and future generations in order to leave this world a better place than we found it.”

The Islamic declaration focuses on environmental protection and the management of natural resources, while also strongly criticizing rich and powerful countries, which it says have delayed the implementation of a comprehensive climate change agreement out of pure selfishness, according to reports by Responding to Climate Change. 

“Their reluctance to share in the burden they have imposed on the rest of the human community by their own profligacy is noted with great concern,” the declaration says, before urging these countries, as well as big business, to play a larger role is tackling the issue. 

Earlier this year, Pope Francis made a similar plea to the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, urging drastic cuts in fossil fuel emissions and stopping the planet's “spiral of self-destruction.” Bishops called the statement, “our marching orders for advocacy.”

The religious leaders' statements will add pressure to world leaders as they negotiate new carbon-cutting deals at the United Nations climate summit in Paris this December.