Islamic religious and environmental leaders, citing a Muslim duty to fight climate change, are urging rich countries and oil-producing nations to end their use of fossil fuel by 2050.
A declaration endorsed by religious leaders, noted Islamic scholars and teachers from 20 countries was released at a symposium in Istanbul.
Using language from the Koran, it urges Muslims "not to strut arrogantly on the Earth."
It contains a number of political demands aimed at Gulf States preparing to participate in a global climate summit in December in Paris, urging them to assume a leadership role in phasing out fossil fuels.
Although some 50 countries have announced their goals for limiting climate change as the Paris summit approaches, that total contains very few Muslim countries, prompting the declaration to specifically address them.
"We particularly call on the well-off nations and oil-producing states to lead the way in phasing out their greenhouse gas emissions as early as possible and no later than the middle of the century," the declaration says.
It follows the recent encyclical from Pope Francis concerning climate change and the environment, with Catholic leaders expressing support for the Islamic declaration.
Cardinal Peter Turkson, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace who helped draft the papal encyclical, said he welcomed the declaration "with great joy, and in a spirit of solidarity."
The declaration has drawn some criticism that it's not truly representative of Islam, given that some of the largest Islamic nations have expressed no reaction to its call and in fact did not send attendees to the Istanbul symposium.
"Are all Islamic countries represented? I'd say no to that—that's the honest answer," says Fazlun Khalid of the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences based in Britain, one of the sponsors of the Istanbul event.
Unlike the Catholic Church with its Pope, there is no supreme unified authority in the decentralized religion that is Islam, suggesting the declaration may not necessarily be supported by imams, worship leaders in mosques, throughout the Muslim world, Khalid says.
"Some of them are hopelessly out of touch on this," he says. "There is a huge amount of lethargy—we are not set up like other churches, there is no Islamic pope!"
Hakima el-Haite, the environment minister of Morocco—the only Middle Eastern country to present an emissions-cutting climate pledge ahead of the Paris summit—said the declaration could help bring a changed mindset about climate change in some Gulf States.
"It is an emotive call for a spiritual fight against climate change that will be very important for Muslims," she said.
