Faith & Climate Change (2)

Dr Mark Collins (Director, Commonwealth Foundation), Brian McAndrew (Chair, Faith Regen Foundation), Omar Faruk (Founder Director, Eco-Muslim), Lord Sheikh

Committee Room 4, the setting for the reception

Omar Faruk & Lord Sheikh

Lord Sheikh & Dr. Mark Collins

The Faith & Climate Change conference was launched tonight with a House of Lords reception hosted by Lord Sheikh.

Lord Sheikh is the founder of the Conservative Muslim Forum, Chair of the Conservative Ethnic Diversity Council, founder of the Sheikh Abdullah Foundation, and Chairman of Camberford Law plc. He drew on his upbringing in Uganda, in his speech, to ground both his own lifelong love of the environment and his respect for all religions. He argued that it is people that have spoilt the environment and people that have to put it right. Faith communities are a global tool for mobilising communities and share an understanding of people as stewards of the earth. Working towards a low energy economic Britain by means of legally binding targets for cutting emissions, expansion of renewable energies, and individual actions to recycle and conserve energy was the vision that he outlined.

Dr Mark Collins (Director, Commonwealth Foundation) agreed that climate change is the greatest global environmental threat but added that its humanitarian and economic dimension had come to equal, if not, greater prominence. In the Commonwealth many livelihoods and lives are threatened by climate change and the main issue arising from it, which is the redistribution of water around the planet. In Bangladesh a 1 metre rise in the sea level could displace 17 million people while in Southern Africa the problem is the drying of the climate. The Commonwealth is unusually vulnerable due to the number of small countries and small economies.

The Commonwealth countries, he said, have been discussing respect, tolerance and equality but have had a tendency to set aside faith issues because of their diversity. The Commonwealth Heads of Government meet in Trinidad at the end of November with climate change very much on their agenda. As a result, this conference is timely and an opportunity to inject thoughts on the input of faith communities into their discussions.

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Playing For Change: Peace Through Music - One Love.