Al-Azhar has ordered its institution to draft a curriculum to raise awareness of the dangers of climate change and coordinate efforts to address environmental and climate crises.
This comes as part of Egyptian institutions’ preparations to host the COP27 United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2022 in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.
“Preserving the environment and limiting the climate change crisis is a crucial matter and underestimating its negative impacts exacerbates poverty rates,” it noted.
Al-Azhar University’s third scientific conference for environment and sustainable development kicked off on Saturday in Cairo, under the auspices of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The three-day event is attended by Al-Azhar Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, Awqaf Minister Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa and Egypt’s Grand Mufti Dr. Shawki Allam, as well as prominent religious figures.
Among various topics, the conference will discuss the impact of pollution on climate and the negative effect of climate change on health, industry, water and agriculture, as well as the role of greenhouse gas emissions in upping pollution rates and global warming.
Tayeb underlined the importance of coordinating efforts between religious leadersو scholars and political leaders to raise awareness about environmental and climate crises.
Tayeb said that Sisi’s sponsorship of the event asserts Egypt’s interest and keenness to claim responsibility and play its role in facing the major challenges facing humanity.
Climate change is causing rise in temperatures, the outbreak of fires in forests, snowfall in the seas and oceans and the extinction of many animal and plant species, he stressed.
These have prompted officials in the east and the west to warn from these dangers, hold international conferences to address the causes of this catastrophe and work hard to prevent it and criminalize its perpetrators.
President of Al-Azhar University Mohamed al-Mahrasawi said climate change is an “old, modern and renewed issue,” considering it one of the most complex matters.
“Poor peoples are still paying a heavy bill as a price for the welfare of the major industrialized countries, their exploitation of the environment and their pollution and global warming.”
He called for forming a specialized scientific committee to prepare a simple educational curriculum on the dangers of climate and environmental changes and means to address them and reduce their effects.
