'Big Green Jummah': UK mosques dedicate Friday sermon to climate change awareness

UK mosques dedicated their Friday sermons to raising awareness on the environment and climate change, as part of a week-long initiative.
2 min read
24 September, 2021
Big Green Jummah aims to raise awareness on environmentalism and climate change [Getty]

Mosques around the United Kingdom dedicated their Friday sermons to raising awareness about the environment and devastating impacts of climate change as part of one-week initiative.

Making the announcement on their social media pages, the Muslim Council of Britain - the UK's largest umbrella body for Muslim-led organisations – said they teamed up with the Muslim Charities Forum for the Great Big Green Week, or The Big Green Jummah, which began on 18 and will finish on 26 September.

"As Muslims, we have a religious duty towards protecting and preserving this Earth, and all that’s in it," the MCB wrote.

Verses from the Quran were shared to stress from a theological point of view the importance of preserving the environment and tackling climate change.

There are over 2.6 million Muslims of different ethnicities living in the UK, with over 1,800 mosques.

A landmark United Nations climate science report in August warned that human activity has already locked in climate disruptions for decades - but that rapid, large-scale action to reduce emissions could still stave off some of the most destructive impacts.

So far, governments do not plan to cut emissions anywhere near fast enough to do that.

The UN said last week that countries' commitments would see global emissions increase to be 16% higher in 2030 than they were in 2010 - far off the 45% reduction by 2030 needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.