Dubai teen rallies for green earth at World Bank Youth Summit

Dubai girl Kehkashan Basu has been championing for a healthier, greener planet earth since she was 8 years old.

In her passionate address to the delegates at the World Bank Youth Summit, she said: "I was born in the year of the new millennium, the same year when the global fraternity adopted the ambitious Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - eight targets ranging from poverty eradication, environmental sustainability to building global partnerships that were supposed to transform our world and set it on the road to sustainability.

"In that historic summit fifteen years ago, world leaders committed to 'spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty' and urged governments to 'put people and their needs at the forefront of policy making'.

"But the reality is that every year since then, human suffering has continued to plumb new depths and the gap between the haves and have not widened even further," said the year 10 student of Deira International School.

During the course of her presentation, Kehkashan shared the unique work carried out by her youth organisation Green Hope UAE which engages, educates and empowers young people on mitigating climate change, stopping land degradation, adopting sustainable consumption lifestyles and promoting the usage of renewable energy.

Green Hope reaches out to young people through a unique initiative called 'Environment Academies' which are tailor-made workshops, varying from two-hour sessions to full day events targeting students from schools across the country. Participants learn to calculate their carbon footprint, means of stopping land degradation, understand the concepts of sustainable consumption, climate change impacts, biodiversity conservation and the need for climate justice. Tree planting is an integral part of all these academies it is the most effective way of combatting climate change and reducing carbon footprint.

Kehkashan personally trains young members to conduct presentations at these academies. Green Hope has reached out to over 100 institutions through this unique initiative planting over 3,000 trees.

The World Bank Youth Summit is an annual event of international repute and one of the most sought-after platforms highlighting youth engagements on sustainable development. The Youth Summit 2015 sought to focus on young people's role in the fight against climate change.

According to the organisers, the event's objective was to gather exceptional future leaders to tell the story of climate change and inspire communities everywhere to take action.

The summit was inaugurated by keynote speaker Rachel Kyte, Special Envoy for Climate Change, World Bank Group.

In her closing statement , Kehkashan made an impassioned plea for enhanced youth engagement and said, "The current trend of economic growth at the cost of environment and society must be stopped. We have an obligation to protect our natural resources and ensure that we leave the natural and human environment in at least the same good condition as it was received."

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