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Muslim countries to lead on green issues
The Conference on Muslim Action on climate change ended on Saturday, urging the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to set up a special council to offer leadership on climate change issues
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he Conference on Muslim Action on climate change ended on Saturday, urging the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to set up a special council to offer leadership on climate change issues.
It said that the OIC needed to promote climate change policies, including on lifestyles which would suit Islamic values.
It recommended that Muslim communities should initiate action to deal with climate change through establishment of eco-Islamic boarding schools (pesantren) and use mosques to disseminate sustainability messages to congregations.
The two-day conference however, failed to set up a Muslim Association on Climate Change Action as an umbrella group to help implement the Bogor declaration.
The conference did not discuss a suggested green hajj concept for the pilgrimage to Mecca as planned.
“With or without the proposed umbrella group, we will take action on climate change,” the head of
the steering committee Ismid Hadad said.
The conference would submit the Bogor Declaration to the OIC, which consists of 57 Muslim countries and countries with large Muslim communities.
“It is time for the OIC to talk about climate change to help pressure the international community to deal with global warming,” he said.
The conference also agreed to promote collaboration between researchers in Muslim countries
There are currently more 1.4 billion Muslims worldwide, around one fifth of the world’s population.
Ismid said Muslim countries needed to provide religious leaders with knowledge on climate change to share with their congregations.
They also agreed to promote environmental issues in carriculum from the pesantren to university level.
“The pesantren system in Indonesia can be used as a model to promote best environmental education practices,” he said.
There are currently 17,000 pesantren in Indonesia.
“Some 900 pesantren have applied eco-friendly practices by managing water, waste and energy and providing curriculum with environmental subjects” member of the eco-pesantren team, Mardhani Djuhri said.
The director of the Center for Civilization Dialogue at the University of Malaya, Azizan Baharuddin recognized the role of education “Education should promote public awareness sustainable development,” Azizan said.
Mohammad Azmi from the Malaysia-based Consumer Association of Penang said that Muslim countries should strengthen their position on international talks on climate change issues.
The UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC) hosts annual conference on climate change to discuss such issues as emission cuts.
“The OIC should come up with a strong position on climate change to back up the UNFCCC,” he said.
“All Muslim countries should come onto the [UNFCCC] board to prevent rich nations from ‘killing’ of the Kyoto Protocol,” he said.
Azmi said that the Muslim countries should also push rich nations to provide financial and technical assistance in support of the transfer of green technology to help the developing countries in dealing with climate change.
“Muslim countries need to set up a block negotiation to strengthen the voice of Muslims in climate change talks,” he said.
