Are the “Sons of the desert” doing their utmost to curtail climate change?

One out of every 4 human beings on this planet is a Muslim.  As such, are members of this planet’s largest religious group doing enough to combat the growing problems of global warming and climate change?

Much of the world’s known petroleum reserves are located in or off-shore from Muslim dominated countries in South Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East. Overgrazing and other environmentally damaging agricultural practices in many of these countries are resulting in “desertification,” a term that not only refers to the abuse of once fertile pasture land, causing it to become arid or desert-like, but also the expansion of existing deserts – especially in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and in  many parts of Asia as well.

Soon after the beginning of the just completed COP 15 climate change conference in Copenhagen, an article appeared in a Canadian Islamic web blog, Muslim Presence.com by the author, Dr. Hind Al-Abadleh , an assistant professor of Chemistry at Wilfrid Laurier University, and who teaches courses in Environmental Chemistry, dealing with the relationship between Islamic religious teaching and the preservation of the environment – particularly in regards to climate change. Professor Al-Abadleh asked the following question: “With all the science behind climate change, is there room for religion to say anything about it?”

Within the course of her article, Professor Al-Abadleh covered religious teachings that covered the relationship between mankind and natured noted that “one has to understand the type of knowledge that scientific studies are providing regarding the contribution of human activities to climate change, and the religious teachings that shed light on the relationship between humans and the natural world.”

As a scientist, Professor Al-Abadleh notes that many scientists believe that climate change is being caused by an over abundance of carbon dioxide that leads to the formation of “greenhouse gases” which are composed of  natural gas and methane, ozone, chlorofluorocarbons and nitrous oxide which causes the extra warming, which raise temperatures and causes climate change.

She went on to say that while only about 4% of total CO2 amounts are caused by humans, the annual increase of these gases have resulted in increases in surface temperatures much higher than “natural” temperature increases which amount to only around 0.5 degrees C every 1,000 years.

The irresponsible manner in which humans are disturbing the natural aspect of climate patterns has a strong connection with religion, according to Prof. Al-Abadleh, and to back up her ideas, she notes passages from the Quran that relate to the responsibility that God (Allah) gave to Mankind in regards to taking care of the earth including perhaps the most noteworthy one: It is He (God) who has made you (people of Adam) the successors, stewards, vicegerents on the Earth”.

Prof.  Hind Al-Abadleh
By referring to this passage, Prof. Al-Abadleh notes that we, the inhabitants of this plant are responsible for preserving the world that God created and gave to us; and that devout Muslims are supposed to heed this responsibility as guardians of the natural world and help maintain a proper “balance” between the world of Man andthe natural world with corruption being regarded as environmental mismanagement.

While the western world is largely responsible for much of the pollution and greenhouse gases that are said to be contributing to global warming, there is much that the Muslim world can do to lesson its contribution to greenhouse gases, especially countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, where more that 80% of natural rainforests have been destroyed; much of it by slash and burn land clearing methods to plant crops such as palm trees for making palm oil.

Efforts are being made to  “green” the deserts by planting certain types  of grass and shrubs that can flourish in harsh desert climates and help reduce the effects of desertification, including a project being planned by the UAE state of Qatar. Other environmental sustaining projects are also underway in various parts of the Middle East, such as Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City, which when completed, will be the world’s first carbon neutral community.

There is still much that the Muslim World can do, however, to show that its large portion of humanity can unite and help reverse the effects of global warming and climate change. The apparent disconcert by many Muslims was evident when one of our reporters met up with some OPEC delegates at the COP 15 conference in Copenhagen.

As a part of the world from whence half of all petroleum production comes from, the World Islamic Community should do more to heed the words written in it’s most holy religious work – the Quran: “Corruption has flourished on land and sea as a result of people’s actions and He will make them taste the consequences of some of their own actions so that they may turn back” (Quran 30:41).

Photo: National Geographic

Sources: Heidi Strebel GreenOptions.com, Muslimpresence.com, News.mongabay.com, The Quran

The post How Does the World's 1.5 Billion Muslims Relate to Climate Change? appeared first on Green Prophet.

It’s over: the two week long COP 15 conference on global warming and climate change ended Friday night with a weak agreement to try to keep global warming temperature levels at or below 2 degrees Celsius, and to allocate a sum of $ 30 billion towards dealing with the effects of climate change by the year 2012.

The hastily hammered out deal also calls for a measure of transparency to be established between developed and developing nations towards dealing with the consequences of global warming and climate change.

While not perfect by any means, the agreement, signed by leaders of the U.S., Brazil, India, South Africa, and China, was perhaps better than nothing, and at least kept the conference from ending in failure; with nothing more than photo shots of the participants, along with video clips of the outside “street participants” in running battles with Danish police and with scores of them being arrested and detained until the conference’s end.The deal, in which U.S. President Barack Obama said “all major economies have come together to accept their responsibilities to combat climate change” is at least a start, even though disappointed environmentalists had hoped for much stronger measures to reduce the carbon footprint effects of both the developed and developing nations on our planet’s nvironment. And many protesting “street environmists” paid the price for their concern by becoming “guests” of the Copenhagen Police Department.

President Obama showed up on the last day of the conference like a knight in shining armor, and was shuttled from meeting to meeting in order to confer with as many delegates as possible, as well as have some private talks on other international matters with leaders of Russia, China (whose premier Wen Jiobao actually stood him up) and others before the President was finally able to attend a meeting with the other four major signers in order to finalize the agreement.

Ireland’s Prime Minister, Brian Cowen, described the deal agreed  so far by 28 world leaders at the Copenhagen climate change summit as “far less ambitious than what we wanted.”

The agreement is not legally binding, however, as it has to be endorsed by all of the 193 countries who participated at the conference; many of them being developing nations, who feel that they are being blamed more for their impact on global warming due to their “slash and burn” agriculture, depletion of tropical rain forests, and use of coal and other highly polluting fossil fuels for power and manufacturing industries. Many developing country leaders lambasted the agreement, including Sudan’s UN Ambassador Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, who said the agreement was “just an idea.”

Although Sudan is not exactly a good example of Middle Eastern countries sensitive to the effects of climate change, other countries in this region are also not too pleased with having the larger more developed countries dictate terms to them regarding their responsibility in combating global warming.

But it must be noted that although the entire Middle is responsible for less than 5 percent of  the world’s total emissions and pollution that contribute to global warming, the region does account for nearly 50% of world petroleum production that is considered a major cause of global warming. Israel and Egypt are reported to have the largest amount of carbon emissions, with those like Jordan and Lebanon having lesser amounts.

Despite the contribution of  Middle Eastern countries towards the fossil fuels that are said by many to be causing much of our current global warming woes, a number of these countries are currently involved in solar energy and other renewable energy projects; including those in the Persian Gulf region, Egypt, and Israel.

While Israel has some of the most developed solar energy projects in the world, it also is responsible for the second highest level of carbon emissions, coming in after Egypt. Israel is also in danger of having its local solar energy projects curtailed significantly due to a recent announcement by the Israel Electric Corporation that it no longer has funds to subsidize the purchase of excess electricity sold back to the country’s national electricity grid by solar powered electricity plants.

Whether similar situations could happen in other Middle East countries remains to be seen. But in any event, and for the present time anyway, the outcome of the two week conference in Copenhagen, will not result in many earthshaking changes in a part of the world that still supplies the world with nearly 50% of it’s petroleum – with all its implications.

Photos via Paul Souders/Corbis, cnn.com

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Delegates gathered in City Hall Square of the city to publicly light the Channukah menorah, but with a climate-flavored twist.  Instead of singing the traditional words to age-old Channukah songs, the activists changed the words to reflect their reason for attending the conference.  “We light this candle for coal, and for cars – when will Israel have a [climate] plan?” they sang with mischievous grins (see video below, in Hebrew).

This clever stunt is one of thousands of NGO (non-governmental organization) activities taking place throughout the duration of the Copenhagen conference.  According to the UN framework, only official representatives of nations can make decisions in climate negotiations.  But that hasn’t stopped hordes of activists from descending on the Danish capital to push their leaders toward a strong, effective, and just international climate treaty.

Activist strategies range in scope and intent.  An estimated 60,000-100,000 marched through the streets over the weekend in support of a just climate treaty (including almost 1,000 who were arrested for more disruptive, riot-like protest tactics).  But the nature of the conference allows activists to get creative, too.  Lebanese climate rock-stars IndyAct (who we’ve interviewed live from Copenhagen here), for instance, dressed up as “850” delegates, representative of oil industry interests, and satirically lobbied official conference delegates.

The Israeli NGOs, too, are using their creative juices to make their presence known.  In addition to the Channukah gathering, the delegation is sponsoring a bike ride through Copenhagen, a screening of the film Urban Legend and discussion with director MK Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz), and a debate on “No to Coal” campaigns, co-organized with 350.org.

The Israeli delegation sits under the umbrella of the Paths to Sustainability Coalition, which was founded in 2002 to promote and lobby for national policies addressing the climate crisis and its impacts.  The coalition includes dozens of Israeli environmental organizations, many of which are represented in the 30+ person delegation to Copenhagen.

The NGO delegation believes that, to date, the Israeli government has not taken sufficient action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  They therefore

[call] upon the government of Israel to formulate a comprehnsive, ambitious and bold climate policy and to allocate the resources necessary for its implementation.  Israel must set clear and substantial greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets, on par with the standards of developed countries of the world, and in accordance with Israel’s level of economic development.

Their demands encompass a holistic array of climate related policies, including energy, transport, water, waste, and more.

Click here to read the Paths to Sustainability Coalition’s policy platform, or here to see the official invitation to this week’s events.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UZI5ljAaig[/youtube]

:: Paths to Sustainability, New York Times, IndyAct Blog

For more on the COP-15 climate conference in Copenhagen:
From the eye of the reporter: Finding the Arab delegates in Copenhagen
Greenpeace Petition Calls on Netanyahu to Attend Copenhagen Climate Change Summit
Lebanon’s Wael Hmaidan From IndyACT Reports From Copenhagen While “Saving the Planet”

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