35/14 Summary of the panel discussion on the adverse impact of climate change on States’ efforts to realize the rights of the child and related policies, lessons learned and good practices - Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

GE.17-05282(E)

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Human Rights Council Thirty-fifth session

6-23 June 2017

Agenda items 2 and 3

Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner

for Human Rights and reports of the Office of

the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General

Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil,

political, economic, social and cultural rights,

including the right to development

Summary of the panel discussion on the adverse impact of climate change on States’ efforts to realize the rights of the child and related policies, lessons learned and good practices

Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for

Human Rights

Summary

The present report is submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 32/33,

in which the Human Rights Council decided to hold a panel discussion on the adverse

impact of climate change on States’ efforts to realize the rights of the child and related

policies, lessons learned and good practices. The Council also requested the Office of the

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to submit to the Council, at its

session following the panel discussion, a summary report, including any recommendations

stemming therefrom, for consideration of further follow-up action. The present report

summarizes the panel discussion on human rights and climate change that was held on 2

March 2017 during the thirty-fourth session of the Council.

United Nations A/HRC/35/14

I. Introduction

1. Pursuant to its resolution 32/33, the Human Rights Council held a panel discussion

on the adverse impact of climate change on States’ efforts to realize the rights of the child

and related policies, lessons learned and good practices.1

2. The panel discussion was chaired by the Vice-President of the Human Rights

Council, Amr Ramadan, and it opened with a statement by the Director of the Thematic

Engagement, Special Procedures and Right to Development Division of the Office of the

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

3. The discussion provided an opportunity for States, international organizations and

other relevant stakeholders to discuss the impact of climate change on the enjoyment of the

rights of the child, with a focus on facilitating effective, rights-based climate action through

the exchange of knowledge and good practices between expert panellists, States,

international organizations and other relevant stakeholders.

4. The panel was moderated by the Deputy Permanent Representative of the

Philippines to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva,

Maria Teresa T. Almojuela. The panellists were the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of

Viet Nam, Ha Kim Ngoc; the Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United

Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, M. Shameem Ahsan; the

Director of the Geneva Liaison Office of the Division of Public Partnerships at the United

Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF); the Rapporteur of the Committee on the Rights of the

Child, Kirsten Sandberg; and the founder of the Green Hope Foundation, Kehkashan Basu.

II. Opening session

5. The Director of the Thematic Engagement, Special Procedures and Right to

Development Division stated that the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other

human rights instruments required action to address the threat of climate change. The

Committee on the Rights of the Child had found that climate change was a serious threat to

children’s health and that it exacerbated health disparities. Climate change increased risks

posed to children by diseases, malnutrition, heat stress, natural disasters and displacement,

affecting their rights, their well-being and even their survival. With this in mind, it was

essential for children to be at the centre of mitigation and adaptation strategies.

6. Climate change also posed a direct threat to children’s identities, their livelihoods

and their relationship with the environment. From a legal, ethical and moral perspective,

when children died as result of preventable, anthropogenic causes, insufficient preventative

action challenged the very conception of justice. However, States’ current commitments to

address climate change were projected to fall far short of the action needed to stay below

the 2°C warming limit agreed to in the Paris Agreement under the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and to satisfy their respective

obligations related to the rights of the child and intergenerational equity. Each State had

human rights obligations to prevent climate harms by regulating environmental practices, to

protect vulnerable communities, to hold violators accountable and to ensure redress when

harms were suffered.

7. A rights-based approach to climate action also required that children be empowered

as agents of change and be ensured an education adequate for them to rise to future

challenges. Children were entitled to participate (according to their age and maturity) in

decisions that had a direct and indirect impact upon their well-being, including those related

to climate policy. For example, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development described

children as agents of change critical to the transition towards an equitable, sustainable and

1 The full video of the panel discussion is available from http://webtv.un.org/meetings-

events/watch/panel-discussion-on-climate-change-and-child-rights-10th-meeting-34th-regular-

session-human-rights-council-/5343577829001.

fossil fuel-free development. Children had already demonstrated their importance as drivers

of change in the climate arena. They were increasingly engaged in strategic litigation to

promote more ambitious climate action. In Juliana v. United States, children had sued the

Government of the United States of America, alleging various violations of their

constitutional rights to life, liberty, property and equal protection as a result of inadequate

responses to climate change. In concluding her opening statement, the Director emphasized

the importance of the empowerment, education and inclusion of children for more effective

climate action.

III. Summary of the panel discussion

8. Opening the panel discussion, the moderator — the Deputy Permanent

Representative of the Philippines to the United Nations Office and other international

organizations in Geneva — emphasized that this discussion on climate change and the

rights of the child was deeply important to her Government. As one of the most vulnerable

countries to climate change, the Philippines was counting on the effective implementation

of the Paris Agreement, including a renewed push towards international cooperation to

ensure effective mitigation and adaptation efforts. Climate change would increase both the

frequency and the intensity of natural disasters, which were estimated to affect the lives of

250 million people worldwide each year, half of them children. The Philippines alone had

recorded 274 disasters from 1995 to 2015, affecting 130 million people. Between 2007 and

2011, 10.8 million students in the Philippines had been affected by disasters, and 8,472

schools had been used as evacuation centres. In mid-October 2015, Typhoon Lando had

displaced 1 million people, and had damaged 803 schools which were closed for an average

of two weeks. One hundred and thirty-eight schools had been used as evacuation centres.

Those disasters had also resulted in damage to socioeconomic and cultural infrastructure,

further affecting the basic human rights of children. The Philippines had sought to highlight

the link between climate change and the enjoyment of human rights by developing

environmental policies that directly addressed and protected children’s rights, such as its

Climate Change Act of 2009. The country’s Commission on Human Rights had also

recently accepted a petition against 47 “carbon major” companies, which accused them of

breaching millions of people’s fundamental rights. The Commission called for an

investigation into the human rights implications of climate change and the accountability of

major polluters.

A. Contributions of the panellists

9. The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Viet Nam stated that there were many

challenges to addressing the negative impacts of climate change on children’s rights. For

developing countries, inadequate resources, weak infrastructure and limited forecasting

capacity all made it harder to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change on

persons in vulnerable situations, including children. There was insufficient awareness of

how climate change affected children’s rights. Over half a billion children — in total, 23

per cent of the world’s children — lived in extremely high flood-occurrence zones. Nearly

160 million children lived in high or extremely high drought severity zones. In Viet Nam,

drought and salinization caused by the longest period of El Niño in history had affected

more than 500,000 children in the previous year.

10. Child-centred climate policies were needed. The Government of Viet Nam had

adopted its National Strategy on Climate Change 2012-2020 and its National Strategy for

Natural Disaster Prevention, Response and Mitigation to 2020, both of which underlined

the significance of addressing negative climate impacts on children and provided

frameworks for provinces to build their own plans. Those plans included comprehensive

childcare and protection measures at all stages, and prioritized prevention. Viet Nam was

also giving climate change communication a renewed focus in the potential development of

a child-centred programme on disaster risk reduction for 2017-2021.

11. The Deputy Minister called for more efforts to improve awareness of climate change

and its impacts on children. This required raising climate literacy through various means,

including through schools, the media, music festivals, television shows and the organization

of workshops. In Viet Nam, climate change awareness was integrated into national

curricula. Once children and adults understood climate change and its impacts on children,

child-centred climate policies would follow. There was also a need to enhance international

cooperation on climate change, with a focus on addressing negative impacts on children

and on mainstreaming children’s rights. The Deputy Minister concluded by calling upon the

United Nations to lead international studies on the impact of climate change on children

and thanking the United Nations for its invaluable assistance and support to Viet Nam

during the previous year’s El Niño episode.

12. The Permanent Representative of Bangladesh observed that the human rights and

climate change nexus had been well elaborated in previous panel discussions at the Human

Rights Council. The poorest in societies were the most vulnerable to harmful effects from

climate change, with the children among them being particularly vulnerable. Climate

change harmed the natural system, subsequently disrupting associated social, economic,

cultural and political systems. Increased numbers of natural disasters, changes in rainfall

patterns and sea level rise contributed to drinking-water and sanitation crises, the spread of

communicable and non-communicable diseases, severe malnutrition, school dropouts,

forced labour, and loss of life and livelihoods. Addressing the impacts of climate change

required substantial public expenditures in related sectors. Climate change, therefore,

severely constrained the capacity of States to ensure children’s rights, including those to

health, social security, education, protection from economic exploitation, and life.

13. The social impact of climate change on low-lying developing States could cause

conflict, violence, and even mass displacement. Inadequate responses to cumulative

weather-related losses and damage to lives, natural resources and livelihoods threatened

more instability, with children being affected the most. Climate change would impede

efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (particularly Goals 2, 3, 4, 8, 11, 13

and 16), harming most those countries that had contributed the least to climate change,

which included Bangladesh. Urgent and ambitious climate action was critically needed to

address that challenge. It was clearly stated in the Paris Agreement that when taking climate

action, States should respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human

rights, thereby establishing a basis by which all States should undertake rights-based

climate action including with regard to adaptation, mitigation, finance, transfer of

technology and capacity-building. Hence, the Paris Agreement offered a clear opportunity

to make all climate decisions in the best interests of the child.

14. At the national level, Bangladesh had implemented its plan of Nationally

Appropriate Mitigation Actions, under which the Solar Homes Programme, inter alia, had

been established. That programme provided off-grid electricity access to rural areas and had

extended the length of study time for children. Bangladesh also hoped to scale up the use of

solar irrigation pumps and of solar mini and nano grids to improve access to electricity and

increase agricultural productivity, thereby, also promoting food security for children. These

were mitigation measures, with adaptation co-benefits that responded to children’s needs.

The country’s Climate Change Strategy on Adaptation had been similarly designed to take

into account the needs and vulnerability of children, for example by using cyclone shelters

as makeshift schools during disasters.

15. The Permanent Representative suggested some possible entry points for further

action under the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC, calling upon States to keep children’s

rights in focus when preparing and submitting their intended nationally determined

contributions; to raise the ambition of their mitigation efforts; to ensure a loss and damage

system that responded adequately to human rights obligations and particularly to children’s

rights; and to address the protection of children in the work of the task force on

displacement established under the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage

Associated with Climate Change Impacts. Furthermore, he called upon States to ensure

responsible conduct by businesses, not only in the area of emissions reductions but also in

making resources available for climate adaptation to protect children’s rights. Linking the

outbreak of various communicable and non-communicable diseases due to climate change,

he also underlined that States might take advantage of the latest amendment to the

Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) with regard

to affordability of medicines, in order to better realize the right to health of children and

reduce child and maternal mortality. In order to protect children’s rights from climate

change, States needed to mobilize political will and action to realize the objectives of the

Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

16. The Director, Geneva Liaison Office, Division of Public Partnerships, United

Nations Children’s Fund observed that climate change represented one of the most

fundamental threats facing the world’s children and future generations. Climate change

affected children’s rights, including their access to food and water, their health and

development, their education and even their very survival, in a number of ways. Climate

change had affected precipitation patterns and increased the frequency and intensity of

hydrometeorological events, threatening the 500 million children living in flood-prone

areas, the 160 million children exposed to severe droughts and the 115 million children at

high risk from tropical cyclones. Disasters had an adverse impact on a whole range of other

children’s rights enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It was, for

example, linked to increased risk of psychosocial trauma, separation, exploitation and other

child protection issues. Children from poor families were most at risk, since the poorest

families tended to settle in areas more exposed to the adverse effects of climate change.

17. Climate change also exacerbated the spread of vector-borne diseases, a major cause

of mortality for children under 5 years of age, and malnutrition, which accounted for 45 per

cent of child deaths. Malnutrition and undernutrition in the first two years of life could also

lead to irreversible stunting, affecting both the physical and the cognitive development of

children, with resulting long-term implications for development. Furthermore, air pollution

associated with fossil-fuel consumption contributed to pneumonia and other respiratory

diseases. Around 300 million children lived in areas with toxic air that was six times below

minimum air-quality standards. Air pollution contributed to around 600,000 deaths

annually of children under 5 years of age. As a whole, children were more affected by

climate change than adults due to their less developed physiology and immune systems, and

they were at their most vulnerable during their first years of life.

18. The UNICEF representative emphasized that there was no time to waste with regard

to protecting the rights of millions of children living in regions afflicted by rapid- and slow-

onset disasters and toxic air pollution. The recognition of human rights and children’s rights

in the Paris Agreement was a major step in the right direction. Additionally, the urgent need

to protect children and their rights in the context of climate change was emphasized in the

Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and in the Sustainable Development Goals.

However, those words needed to be put into action, and the impacts of climate change on

the enjoyment of children’s rights needed to be further assessed to better inform that action.

Urgent action was needed to limit global temperature rises to 1.5°C or lower, to improve

energy efficiency, to phase out the use of fossil fuels and to transition to sustainable energy.

Investments should also be channelled into building disaster-resilient health-care facilities,

schools, and water and sanitation systems.

19. Finally, children of different ages, gender and social backgrounds should be allowed

to participate in climate policymaking. Climate change education could empower

educators, parents and children as agents of change in their own communities. Children’s

views and specific needs should be sought out, heard and acted upon, with children

included in the development of international and national climate policies and actions. In

concluding, the UNICEF representative called on Governments, the business sector and key

stakeholders to clarify the actions required in order to achieve a safe, clean and sustainable

environment and to integrate issues related to the human rights impacts of climate change

and of climate action into their reporting to the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

20. The Rapporteur of the Committee on the Rights of Child described how the

Committee’s day of general discussion on the environment in 2016 had identified three

categories of obligations, namely substantive obligations of mitigation and adaptation,

procedural obligations, and heightened obligations for persons especially vulnerable to

environmental harm, including children. Climate change threatened the best interests of

children as well as nearly all of their substantive rights, including the rights to life, survival

and development, to rest, leisure and play, to cultural life, to health, to an adequate standard

of living, to housing, to food, to water and sanitation, to education, to identity and to

equality. Climate change, by aggravating existing inequalities in the use of and access to

productive land and freshwater, could also contribute to violent conflicts, exploitation and

large-scale migration or displacement. It posed an existential threat to indigenous children,

due to their close relationship with the environment. A child rights-based approach to

climate change was urgent and required that States take into account the rights and best

interests of the child, especially the right to life, survival and development.

21. Relevant procedural rights affected by climate change included the rights to

information, to environmental education and to participation. Children depended on

information on climate change and its impacts to make choices and to exercise their rights

to freedom of expression and to participation, in relation to environmental matters.

Education played a significant role in empowering children to become actors of change and

should include a clear, comprehensive and frequently updated climate change curriculum.

That curriculum should reflect different local contexts, and should include information

relevant to every child’s respective situation and, as appropriate, traditional knowledge.

Target 4.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals offered guidance by calling upon States

to ensure that all learners acquired the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable

development, including through education for human rights.

22. Particular regard should be given to children with disabilities, children from

indigenous groups and other children in vulnerable situations, as they may be

disproportionately impacted by climate change. It was important that they, like all children,

be treated as agents of change and active participants in climate action. Target 13.B of the

Sustainable Development Goals clearly indicated a need to “promote mechanisms for

raising capacity for effective climate change-related planning and management in least

developed countries … including focusing on … youth”. In concluding, the Committee on

the Rights of the Child rapporteur called for policies and mechanisms to be developed to

involve children and young people in climate decision-making at the local, national and

international levels.

23. The founder of the Green Hope Foundation described her work and her motivation,

as an environmental activist at only 16 years of age. She observed that climate change

added another dimension to human suffering and was the harshest reality of our time. Polar

ice caps were melting, sea levels were rising, typhoons and hurricanes were wreaking

havoc, forest fires were choking our skies and fossil fuel-driven economies were turning

our cities into veritable gas chambers. Climate change impacted children’s rights to life, to

health, to education, to food and to shelter.

24. Yet, many had sought to trivialize the issue and its importance, in spite of drastic

changes including widespread climate-induced displacement. Millions of people, including

many children, had been forced by floods, droughts and rising sea levels to migrate from

their homes and countries under uncertain circumstances that increased their risk of

exploitation. Climate change also contributed to the burden of disease among children. Its

impacts were estimated to be responsible, worldwide, for approximately 2.4 per cent of

cases of diarrhoea and 6 per cent of cases of malaria. The impacts on girls were even worse,

as girls had to fight against the additional dimension of gender discrimination in the face of

disasters.

25. The Green Hope Foundation founder indicated that such situations were inspiring

young people such as herself to speak out. As citizens of tomorrow, children had a

leadership role to play in shaping the future. The Green Hope Foundation provided a

platform for young people to come together and take action on climate change. It had

grown into a multiregional organization with a management team comprised solely of

children and over a thousand active volunteers fighting to promote climate justice, protect

biodiversity, stop land degradation, encourage sustainable consumption and achieve gender

equality. The Foundation organized “environment academies”, which were tailor-made

workshops and conferences conducted “by youth, for youth”. It had also established

partnerships not just within civil society but also with government utility bodies and with

corporates. The Green Hope Foundation founder recognized that climate change posed the

greatest threat to children’s survival. For that reason, she was particularly grateful to have

been given the opportunity to speak up for child rights in relation to climate change at the

Human Rights Council.

B. Interactive discussion

26. Interventions were made during the plenary discussion by representatives of Algeria,

Argentina, Australia, Benin, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Canada (on behalf of the

Francophone countries), Chile, China, Costa Rica (on behalf of the Geneva Pledge for

Human Rights in Climate Action), Egypt, El Salvador (on behalf of the Community of

Latin American and Caribbean States), Ethiopia, the European Union, France, Georgia,

Germany, Greece, India, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ireland, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, the

Federated States of Micronesia, Morocco, Myanmar, Pakistan (on behalf of the

Organization of Islamic Cooperation), Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Spain, Tonga, Tunisia (on

behalf of the African Group) and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

27. Representatives of the following non-governmental organizations spoke: CIVICUS

— World Alliance for Citizen Participation, the Friends World Committee for Consultation,

the International Youth and Student Movement for the United Nations, the Centre

indépendant de recherches et d’initiatives pour le dialogue, International-Lawyers.Org and

the Istituto Internazionale Maria Ausiliatrice delle Salesiane di Don Bosco (in collaboration

with VIDES Internazionale).

28. A number of other participants requested the floor during the panel discussion but

were unable to deliver their statements owing to a lack of time. These included

representatives of the following States: Botswana, Ecuador, Fiji, Haiti, Libya, Madagascar,

Maldives, Mexico, Mongolia, Montenegro, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa, Sudan, Togo and

the United Arab Emirates; and of the non-governmental organizations China NGO Network

for International Exchanges, the International Council Supporting Fair Trial and Human

Rights, the Khiam Rehabilitation Centre for Victims of Torture and the Ma’arij Foundation

for Peace and Development.

29. Speakers agreed that climate change negatively affected a broad array of children’s

rights and hampered State efforts to respect, promote, protect and fulfil human rights for all

children. Specific examples were raised of climate change and its impacts on the enjoyment

of children’s rights to life, health, food, education, development, and water and sanitation,

among others. It was observed that children under the age of 5 were the worst affected by

climate change and associated increases in the incidence of diarrhoea, malnutrition,

malaria, dengue fever and other causes of child morbidity and mortality. Children were also

more vulnerable than adults to intense ultraviolet radiation, inadequate shelter and indoor

air pollution. In addition, climate change disrupted children’s right to education through,

inter alia, school closures and damage caused by natural disasters, displacement and

associated impacts. Destruction of infrastructure and related socioeconomic losses also

impacted children’s rights and State efforts to fulfil them.

30. Speakers emphasized that while all children were disproportionately impacted by

climate change, children in vulnerable situations and future generations were impacted even

more, which constituted a clear injustice. Those most affected by climate change had

contributed the least to its making. They included girl children, children living in poverty,

indigenous children, displaced children, children separated from their families, children

with disabilities, and children living in and reliant upon geographically or ecologically

vulnerable areas, such as arid regions, high mountains, islands and other coastal areas,

forests and so on. Several speakers expressed their concern about the immediate impact of

climate change on small island developing States and other climate-vulnerable States. They

urged that the interests of children be put at the centre of climate-change policy responses

in those States, which were already feeling the impacts of climate change, such as sea level

rise, coastal erosion and intensified natural disasters.

31. It was emphasized that in climate-vulnerable States, climate change posed a

contemporaneous threat to inhabitants’ rights to life, survival and development, among

others. The rights and opportunities of children living in those States were severely affected

by the struggle for survival in their places of origin. Beyond threatening their physical well-

being, climate change posed a threat to children’s cultural identity and to the preservation

of their connections with the natural environment.

32. Speakers also emphasized the importance of gender equality in all climate action,

noting that women and girls were disproportionately impacted by climate change, including

natural disasters. One speaker called for gender and social inclusion considerations to be

taken into account in all climate change and disaster risk management policies, projects and

planning processes.

33. Speakers also welcomed the Paris Agreement, with its explicit reference to human

rights, including the rights of children. The Paris Agreement had reaffirmed that States had

human rights obligations related to climate change. It was observed that businesses also had

responsibilities related to addressing the impacts of climate change on the enjoyment of

children’s rights and that there was a need to ensure access to remedy when children’s

rights were violated. Speakers called for every effort to be made to ensure the successful

rights-based implementation of the Paris Agreement. They also highlighted the links

between climate change, human rights and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

It was emphasized that climate change threatened the implementation of development goals

at all levels. In that regard, it was important to link up the actions, positions and processes

related to the UNFCCC, the Human Rights Council, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable

Development and the Sendai Framework in order to ensure effective and concerted

progress towards sustainable development that benefited all persons.

34. One speaker reiterated the call for the Human Rights Council to appoint a special

rapporteur on human rights and climate change to facilitate efforts to make these critical

links and in order to better understand the impacts of climate change on the enjoyment of

all human rights. Another speaker emphasized the role of the Geneva Pledge for Human

Rights in Climate Action in bringing together the human rights and climate communities.

Along these lines, it was also suggested that greater intersectoral cooperation was needed

among government agencies and other stakeholders at the national level. All stakeholders

could make further efforts to integrate climate change-related human rights issues within

the universal periodic review of the Human Rights Council.

35. Many speakers called for the enhancement of child participation in decision-making

and highlighted the importance of education to empower children as agents of change. This

was necessary in order to prepare children to address future challenges concerning climate

change and the preservation of the environment. Some delegations outlined their own

national policies for educating and raising awareness among children about climate change

and its effects. These included integrating teaching on climate change mitigation and

sustainable development into national school curricula, creating local and national

participatory mechanisms for collaborative ecological actions and engagement of children,

building networks of schools concerned with the environment, promoting gender equality

in climate action, developing national action plans and strategies aimed at ensuring youth

and child engagement on climate change, enhancing socioeconomic development in order

to improve the quality of life of current and future generations, and establishing

environmental education centres.

36. Speakers also called for increased international cooperation to promote a rights-

based approach to mitigation and to adaptation to the negative effects of climate change.

Action was needed in order to build capacity in developing countries, including through the

transfer of technology. Some said that until financial pledges to address climate change

were met, climate change would continue to affect generation after generation. They called

for international solidarity in pursuing urgent climate action in accordance with the

principle of common but differentiated responsibility. Many delegations described

international cooperation to address climate change as being an integral part of their foreign

policy and development strategies. The importance of sharing effective measures to combat

the negative impacts of climate change on children’s rights was emphasized.

37. Speakers put a number of specific questions to the panellists, asking them, inter alia,

to share good practices in addressing the negative impacts of climate change on the rights

of the child; to describe the potential role of child-centred policies in climate action; to

elaborate on methods for mainstreaming human rights and specifically rights of the child in

climate change adaptation and mitigation; to address how children’s right to remedy could

be strengthened, including through UNFCCC principles and taking into account the

transboundary effects of climate change caused by the failure of States to comply with their

climate change obligations; to describe how social media could be used to disseminate

climate change-related information; to identify critical steps to be taken at the international

level to address the specific challenges that climate change poses to the protection of

children’s rights in developing countries; and to outline the basic actions needed to

safeguard children’s rights and promote intergenerational equity.

C. Responses and concluding remarks

38. During and after the interactive discussion, the moderator gave panellists the

opportunity to respond to questions and to make concluding remarks. She observed that

there was a common concern among States regarding the impacts of climate change on

children’s rights. With regard to her own country’s actions on this issue, she stated that the

Philippines had adopted and implemented emergency relief policies that had established

child- and women-friendly transitional shelters for orphans and for separated and

unaccompanied children; called for heightened surveillance work against child trafficking

during disaster and post-disaster situations; developed a system to restore and reconstruct

lost documentation in the aftermath of disasters; promoted child-responsive training

programmes for community school personnel, for rescuers and for disaster responders;

improved guidelines to reunite separated children with their families and relatives (a

frequent issue on the ground); and involved children in disaster risk reduction planning and

post-disaster needs assessments. She directed several questions that had been raised during

the interactive dialogue to the panellists, asking them to consider, in particular, the role of

the Human Rights Council with regard to protecting children’s rights from the negative

impacts of climate change, how the Council could promote a more harmonized approach

between all actors, and how to best ensure that State obligations to protect children’s rights

in the context of climate change were met at the international level.

39. The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Viet Nam emphasized the need to build a

climate-literate generation — through child-centred climate change policies, engaging

families, schools and communities in children’s climate education, and encouraging child

participation in climate processes. Vietnamese climate policies were child-centred,

encouraged stakeholder engagement at the national and international levels and kept

children informed about climate change through television programmes and other media

platforms. He also noted that international cooperation, and support from the United

Nations, were both critical to addressing the adverse impacts of climate change on

children’s rights. Viet Nam had enjoyed effective support and cooperation from the United

Nations with regard to researching and assessing climate impacts on children’s rights,

awareness-raising efforts, and disaster risk reduction for children. Work had been

undertaken in collaboration with different government ministries to assess climate impacts

on children’s health, on their education and on their access to social services. The United

Nations, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, had worked to integrate climate

change into school curricula across all ages. Viet Nam had also worked alongside United

Nations agencies, particularly UNICEF, to develop a disaster risk reduction programme.

Generally, this type of cooperation was critical to State efforts to pursue a sustainable,

rights-based approach to climate change.

40. Citing an example from his own country, the Permanent Representative of

Bangladesh emphasized the need to share best practices. The city of Rajshahi, Bangladesh,

had gone from being one of the most polluted cities in the world to achieving a 67.2 per

cent reduction of some forms of harmful pollutants by sending engineers to cities around

the world to seek out best practices to reduce fossil fuel consumption. Among other things,

they replaced fossil fuel-based transportation systems with sustainable ones and undertook

afforestation programmes. The Permanent Representative also addressed State

responsibilities at the international level, including implementation of the Paris Agreement.

He noted that States should be conscious of the importance of awareness-building, which

increased public pressure on leaders to do the right thing. National legislatures needed to be

aware of climate issues and better understand the relationship between human rights, a

healthy environment and development. In that respect, the Permanent Representative

welcomed and encouraged the good work done by the Inter-Parliamentary Union in

Geneva.

41. The Director, Geneva Liaison Office, Division of Public Partnerships, United

Nations Children’s Fund agreed that national legislatures had a key role to play in

addressing the impacts of climate change on children’s rights, including the rights of girls

and of other children disproportionately impacted by climate change. She emphasized that

States had both national and transboundary responsibilities to protect children from the

adverse effects of climate change and, in the event of climate harms, to ensure their access

to remedy. Also under the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, businesses

had a responsibility to ensure access to remedy. With regard to information on the impacts

of climate change on children’s rights, the UNICEF representative highlighted the work of

the Human Rights Council and called for disaggregated data collection which would help

identify persons, including children, women and indigenous peoples, who may be

disproportionately affected by the adverse impacts of climate change. Finally, she called for

increased multisectoral cooperation, the development of child-friendly educational

materials on climate change, which would facilitate children’s participation in climate

processes, and the integration of human rights and children’s rights throughout relevant

monitoring and review mechanisms, including those at the UNFCCC.

42. The Rapporteur of the Committee on the Rights of the Child also emphasized the

importance of ensuring meaningful participation by children in climate action. This could

be done by establishing standing consultative committees at the local and national levels

that included children in government decision-making processes. The rapporteur called on

States to take further steps to meet their human rights obligations to children, including

through improved reporting to the Committee with regard to climate issues. Civil society

inputs to the reviews of periodic State party reports to the Committee could also address

climate issues by drawing attention to the adequacy of States’ individual contributions to

international efforts to keep climate change to less than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels

and to the human rights impacts of their climate actions. For its part, the Committee could

help hold States accountable for any climate-related human rights concerns raised during

the review process by issuing relevant recommendations and asking questions about the

State’s efforts, for example to regulate businesses, and to monitor and respond to negative

climate impacts. Similarly, States could use the universal periodic review process to ask

each other questions and hold each other accountable for their climate and human rights

commitments. Finally, in order to address the transboundary impacts of climate change and

promote access to effective remedies, States could employ extraterritorial jurisdiction

where appropriate.

43. Responding to a question about the role of social media in addressing climate

change, the founder of the Green Hope Foundation stated that social media helped

circumvent geographic boundaries, permitting the foundation to expand its activities

globally. She also called for heightened awareness about the veracity of information posted

on social networks. It was necessary to promote the responsible use of social media

platforms to ensure the accurate transmission of information. She concluded the panel

discussion by reiterating that children should be given a voice and be involved in the

decision-making, agenda-setting and implementation for climate change action.

44. Closing the discussion, the moderator emphasized that collective efforts were

needed to build capacity to protect the rights of children and future generations, and to

ensure that all human rights were protected in the follow-up to and implementation of the

Paris Agreement. While there were a number of challenges to mainstreaming children’s

rights in climate action, the panel discussion had revealed many good practices. She hoped

that the forthcoming summary on the panel discussion and analytical study on climate

change and the rights of the child would make additional concrete recommendations for the

protection and fulfilment of children’s rights through climate action.