The Unit­ed Na­tions Com­mit­tee on the Rights of the Child Mon­day is­sued new guid­ance, call­ing on gov­ern­ments in­clud­ing those in the Caribbean, to take ac­tion to pro­tect boys and girls in the face of the deep­en­ing cli­mate cri­sis.

The guid­ance marks the first time the Com­mit­tee has af­firmed chil­dren’s right to live in a clean, healthy and sus­tain­able en­vi­ron­ment and it pro­vides a com­pre­hen­sive in­ter­pre­ta­tion of state oblig­a­tions un­der the UN Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child, which has been rat­i­fied by 196 coun­tries.

The Unit­ed Na­tions Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is “the most wide­ly rat­i­fied hu­man rights treaty” and signed by all mem­ber states of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM). As a re­sult, all Caribbean chil­dren are fu­ture ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the lega­cy that states will leave be­hind.

The 1989 treaty out­lines chil­dren’s rights, in­clud­ing to life, health, clean drink­ing wa­ter, and sur­vival and de­vel­op­ment.

The UN Com­mit­tee mem­ber, Phillip Jaf­fé, said chil­dren have been at the fore­front of the fight against cli­mate change, urg­ing gov­ern­ments and cor­po­ra­tions to take ac­tion to safe­guard their lives and the fu­ture.

“With its Gen­er­al Com­ment No. 26, the Com­mit­tee on the Rights of the Child not on­ly echoes and am­pli­fies chil­dren’s voic­es but al­so clear­ly de­fines the rights of chil­dren in re­la­tion to the en­vi­ron­ment that States Par­ties should re­spect, pro­tect and ful­fil col­lec­tive­ly and ur­gent­ly,” he added.

The Gen­er­al Com­ment ex­plic­it­ly ad­dress­es the cli­mate emer­gency, the col­lapse of bio­di­ver­si­ty and per­va­sive pol­lu­tion.

It spec­i­fies that states are re­spon­si­ble not on­ly for pro­tect­ing chil­dren’s rights from im­me­di­ate harm, but al­so for fore­see­able vi­o­la­tions of their rights in the fu­ture due to ac­tion, or in­ac­tion, to­day.

Fur­ther­more, it un­der­lines that States can be held ac­count­able for en­vi­ron­men­tal harm oc­cur­ring both with­in their bor­ders and be­yond.

Coun­tries that have rat­i­fied the UN Child Rights Con­ven­tion are urged to take im­me­di­ate ac­tion in­clud­ing phas­ing out fos­sil fu­els and shift­ing to re­new­able en­er­gy sources, im­prov­ing air qual­i­ty, en­sur­ing ac­cess to clean wa­ter, and pro­tect­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty.

The guid­ance al­so states that chil­dren’s views must be con­sid­ered in en­vi­ron­men­tal de­ci­sion-mak­ing and stress­es the crit­i­cal role of en­vi­ron­men­tal ed­u­ca­tion.

UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Hu­man Rights and the En­vi­ron­ment, David Boyd, called Gen­er­al Com­ment No. 26 “a vi­tal step for­ward” in rec­og­niz­ing that every child has the right to live in a clean, healthy and sus­tain­able world.

“Gov­ern­ments must now take ur­gent ac­tion to ad­dress the glob­al en­vi­ron­men­tal cri­sis in or­der to breathe life in­to these in­spir­ing words,” he said.

Gen­er­al Com­ment No. 26 is the out­come of glob­al and in­ter­gen­er­a­tional en­gage­ment, in­clud­ing broad con­sul­ta­tion with UN Mem­ber States, in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al or­ga­ni­za­tions, na­tion­al hu­man rights in­sti­tu­tions, civ­il so­ci­ety or­ga­ni­za­tions, and chil­dren them­selves.

The UN Com­mit­tee’s part­ner, the Swiss or­ga­ni­za­tion Terre des Hommes, led a process with mul­ti-lev­el stake­hold­ers, sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­volv­ing and en­gag­ing chil­dren through on­line con­sul­ta­tions to in­form the text.

The UN Chil­dren’s Fund (UNICEF) al­so pro­vid­ed fur­ther tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise and helped col­lect views from chil­dren as part of the con­sul­ta­tion process.

Gen­er­al Com­ment No. 26 as­sists in in­ter­pret­ing States’ com­mit­ment un­der the Paris Agree­ment on cli­mate change to re­spect, pro­mote and con­sid­er their child rights oblig­a­tions when tak­ing cli­mate ac­tion.

“The cli­mate cri­sis is a child rights cri­sis,” said Palo­ma Es­cud­ero, UNICEF Spe­cial Ad­vis­er on Ad­vo­ca­cy for Child Rights and Cli­mate Ac­tion.

“Every gov­ern­ment has an oblig­a­tion to pro­tect the rights of every child in every cor­ner of the plan­et, es­pe­cial­ly those boys and girls liv­ing in coun­tries that have con­tributed least to this prob­lem but are en­dur­ing the most dan­ger­ous floods, droughts, storms and heat.”

UNIT­ED NA­TIONS, Aug 28, CMC

CMC/af/ir/2023