Dubai Teenager Moderates Side Event at the United Nations in New York Dubai, July 30, 2015: Kehkashan Basu , 15 year old student of the Deira International School and Founder President of Green Hope moderated a side event at the United Nations New York , during the ongoing Inter-Governmental Negotiations on Sustainable Development. This event was organized by Ideas for US , an international youth organization based in Florida , in partnership with Green Hope. The theme of the discussion was ' Renewable Energy for Future Generations'. Despite being only 15 , Kehkashan moderated a panel which included several experts such as : a) Ravi Karkara : Deputy Executive Director UN Women b) Jorge Laguna Cellis : UNEP : Secretary of Governing Bodies and Stakeholders c) Shannon O'Shea : UNICEF d) Lindsay Ashby : Chief of Staff World Energy Forum The panel desicussed that Our planet' is paying a heavy price for its current overdependence on fossil fuels and the consequent global warming and climate change are impacting our future. The post2015 agenda must therefore urge governments , corporates , policy makers and also civil society & stakeholders to come together and move away from fossil fuels to renewable sources . This will ensure a sustainable world in the future for today's children. A global temperature rise of 2 degC by 2050 seems now to be a certainty and given the lack of will to implement emission cuts , for all practical purposes, we will see a much higher rise in global temperatures unless there is a concerted effort from all stakeholders to shift from fossil fuels to clean , renewable energy sources. The needs of young people , who are the future generations must be at the core of the developmental agenda -- and moving to RE needs to be an integral part of this.
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