How the Islamic world can transform the climate war

Countries signing up to commitments like the Paris climate accords should not be taken for granted that they are working closely together, sharing knowledge or resources.

American President Biden’s Leaders’ Summit last month signalled a renewed commitment by world leaders to tackle the looming danger of climate change. Left unaddressed, it could tip the world past the point of no return.

And though the world has moved to act – that does not mean nations are coordinating as they should. Countries signing up to commitments like the Paris climate accords should not be taken for granted that they are working closely together, sharing knowledge or resources. The truth is, we are only seeing coordination on targets. Each country and region, with unique economic, technological, political, and environmental frameworks and capacities, is largely forging a path of their own.

That lack of coordination could be particularly damaging for the Muslim world, which is likely to suffer the biggest humanitarian cost of climate change. Scientists warn, for instance, that swaths of North Africa and the Middle East risk becoming uninhabitable before 2100, potentially displacing up to 600 million people.

So how can the Islamic world – large sections of which risk extinction unless collective action is taken – create the framework of coordination and cooperation necessary to avert such a disaster?

Shared vision

To achieve that, we must leverage the one thing that unites the Islamic world – faith. In fact, to successfully tackle climate change, we must engage the hundreds of millions of people globally who live by religious values. That means including people of faith — and faith itself — into the discourse of the environmental movement. This shouldn’t be difficult in the Muslim world. After all, in the Islamic faith, we find repeated exhortations to protect the environment. For instance, in the Qur’an’s 2nd chapter, Surah Al Baqarah, we learn that God created humans to serve as His “Caliphs” on Earth. This can be translated to mean “steward”. In other words, we are compelled to safeguard the world that God has entrusted humanity with.

How, then, can these faith-based values of environmental welfare come alive in the form of real partnerships and shared environmental standards that transcend borders, while simultaneously remaining grounded in economic realities?

The answer lies in leveraging the untapped power of the Halal economy.

The concept of Halal includes a deeply ethical and spiritual element – something that particularly appeals to younger generations. Estimated to reach $3.2 trillion in value by 2024, the global halal economy in its truest sense extends to pursuing environmentally sustainable practices.

At the grassroots level, the Halal economy can motivate Muslim consumers across countless countries to play their part in tackling climate change, framing the challenge within the context of a religiously inspired struggle – in effect a halal imperative.