Representatives of the world’s major religions are meeting in Sweden to start a crusade against climate change.

“It is easy to lose hope when we hear about climate change and ecological collapse,” says Anders Wejryd, archbishop of the Church of Sweden, which is organising the conference (speech). “It is easy to lose hope when we think of the climate issue’s complexity. … We need hope and hope is something that characterizes most of faith traditions.”

The conference aims to encourage the United Nations into tough action on climate change and also to get believers to take personal action. Around 30 religious representatives will sign a declaration to this effect in Uppsala, Sweden.

“The Climate Interfaith Manifesto will be signed this afternoon and hopefully this Manifesto can serve as a tool for the climate change discussions inside faith traditions as well as a message to the political processes under the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] agenda,” says Henrik Grape, a Swedish pastor and author of the Faith and Climate blog.

Earlier this year the European Union called on religions to help fight climate change at its fourth annual meeting with religious leaders. The environment is “only natural but also a sacred place”, said Janez Janša, president of the European Council.

This attempt to fuse faith and environmentalism is not confined to Europe, and similar American initiatives are also underway.

“Through cosmological narratives, symbols, rituals, ethical directives, and institutional structures, religions shape (albeit not exclusively) how we act toward the environment,” says conference attendee Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, director of the Jewish Studies program at Arizona State University, in a statement released last week.

“Hence, all attempts to transform our environmental attitudes so as to generate a sustainable world must include understanding of world religions and cooperation with religious people.”