Just as scientists announced July was the hottest month in recorded history, and ahead of a major climate summit in Paris later this year, an international group of Islamic leaders on Tuesday released a public declaration calling on the religion’s 1.6 billion followers to engage on the issue of global warming and take bold action to stem its worst impacts.
“What will future generations say of us, who leave them a degraded planet as our legacy? How will we face our Lord and Creator?” —Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change
Released during an international symposium taking place in Istanbul, the Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change is signed by 60 Muslim scholars and leaders of the faith who acknowledge that—despite the short-term economic benefits of oil, coal, and gas—humanity’s use of fossil fuels is the main cause of global warming which increasingly threatens “a functioning climate, healthy air to breathe, regular seasons, and living oceans.”
The declaration states there is deep irony that humanity’s “unwise and short-sighted use of these resources is now resulting in the destruction of the very conditions that have made our life on earth possible.”