Climate change and children’s rights

How climate change puts the fundamental rights of children under pressure

‘There is no cause which merits a higher priority than the protection and development of children, on whom the survival, stability and advancement of all nations – and indeed of human civilization – depends.’ ¹

Introduction

Climate change constitutes an urgent and systematic threat to children’s right to life.² The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (‘IPCC’) has issued numerous reports containing alarming evidence that climate change is dangerously accelerating. In its Sixth Assessment Report³ the IPCC affirms that human activities have unequivocally caused global warming.⁴ Humanity is leaving a persistent signature on earth.⁵ Our species has even altered earth to such an extent that we have entered an entire new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. This epoch is characterised by the profound human impact on Earth’s natural systems.⁶

The consequences of the climate crisis are ever more visible: heavy rainfall, heat waves, droughts, and tropical cyclones are becoming more frequent and intense.⁷ These extreme weather conditions have already claimed human lives.⁸ Climate change therefore threatens the most essential right to human existence: the right to life. Without the protection of this fundamental right, all other human rights cannot fully be enjoyed.⁹ Children are uniquely vulnerable to climate change. As UNICEF notes: ‘The window of opportunity to prevent a more dangerous world for children is rapidly closing.’¹⁰

In this two-part series, I will touch upon several aspects of my master thesis, which addressed the following research question: ‘to what extent can a State’s climate (in)action constitute a violation of Article 6 of the CRC?’

A continuum: from life to development

Children’s right to life is both protected by Article 6(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (‘ICCPR’) and Article 6 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (‘CRC’). The CRC, however, also contains the rights to survival and development. Article 6 of the CRC provides the following:

• States Parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life.
• States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child.

Article 6 of the CRC encompasses three separate, yet interdependent and indivisible rights.¹¹ It reflects the principle of indivisibility, which is part of the normative backbone of the UN human rights doctrine.¹² By guaranteeing the right to survival and development,¹³ which are very social and cultural rights, it bridges a division between international human rights.¹⁴ This connects them to ‘sectoral’ provisions, which are subject-specific guarantees such as those concerning health, education and an adequate standard of living.¹⁵

Article 6 can be seen as a continuum with a negative and positive end.¹⁶ The right to life is positioned at the negative end and the right to development at the positive end. In between is the right to survival.¹⁷ As positive obligations become increasingly embedded within the right to life, the continuum shifts towards the right to survival. This right is inherently a positive right, which ensures a child can physically survive.¹⁸ The right to development, at the positive end, requires implementation of measures aimed at achieving the optimal development for children.¹⁹ Additionally, this continuum encompasses a temporal dimension: whereas the right to life focusses on protecting children’s lives against immediate threats, the right to survival responds to medium- and long-term risks.²⁰

The right to life

Whilst positioned at the negative end, the right to life includes both negative and positive obligations. Therefore, it should not be interpreted narrowly.²¹ The drafters of the CRC also argued for such an interpretation, so that the CRC would tackle various risk factors that could deprive children of their lives.²² Peleg & Tobin have provided an overview of the State obligations deriving from the right to life.²³ States are required to:

1. ‘Take all reasonable measures to ensure that State agents do not violate children’s right to life (the obligation to respect);
2. Take all reasonable measures to ensure that non-State actors do not violate children’s right to life (the obligation to protect);
3. Take all reasonable measures to fulfil and promote children’s right to life (the obligation to fulfil).’²⁴

In determining the appropriate measures to protect children’s right to life, States enjoy a certain level of discretion. These measures must nevertheless be effective and consistent with other provisions of the CRC and international human rights standards.²⁵ At a minimum, States must take reasonable preventive measures to protect children from threats to their life.²⁶

The right to survival

Moving through the continuum, we now arrive at the right to survival. As the name already reveals, this right ensures that the child survives.²⁷ It carries positive obligations and requires States to enable the child to ‘physically survive childhood’.²⁸ This requires tackling preventable causes of child deaths, such as diseases, infections and insufficient nutrition.²⁹

The right to development

The right to development also carries positive obligations and embraces the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral, psychological and social development.³⁰ It must be interpreted in its broadest sense as a holistic concept.³¹ As Freeman notes, ‘a paradigmatic child does not exist, nor one singular and universal childhood.’³² Different children experience diverse childhoods and processes of development. Its interpretation should therefore maintain space to accommodate the variety of children’s life experiences.³³

Children’s unique vulnerability to climate change

As climate change intensifies,³⁴ understanding its legal implications on children’s rights becomes increasingly urgent. To critically examine to what extent a State’s (in)action on climate change can constitute a violation of Article 6, this section investigates how the enjoyment of children’s right to life, survival and development can be endangered by climate change.

Approximately one billion children (nearly half of the world’s children) live in countries at extremely high risk for negative impacts of climate change.³⁵ This statistic is especially concerning given that children are uniquely vulnerable to such impacts.³⁶ Children are physically and physiologically more susceptible to climate change impacts.³⁷ As children’s minds and bodies have yet to fully develop, they are more vulnerable to pollution, deadly diseases, and extreme weather.³⁸ They also need to consume more food and water per unit of body weight, they are more susceptible to irreversible damage due to food and water deprivation.³⁹ Secondly, children are still dependent on their caretakers, which makes it harder for them to survive shocks, such as floods, droughts, severe weather and heatwaves.⁴⁰ Thirdly, climate change often exacerbates existing structural inequalities. Children are twice as likely to live in extreme monetary poverty as adults.⁴¹ Poor children are even more vulnerable to environmental shocks, as they have the least resources and capacities to adapt.⁴² This creates a vicious circle: the most vulnerable children are pushed further into poverty and simultaneously, the risk increases of experiencing the worst effects of climate change.Consequently, climate change disproportionately affects children and creates a myriad of threats for children.⁴⁴

The CRC Committee

The CRC Committee has already explicitly stated that the right to life is threatened by climate change.⁴⁵ If a child dies in a hurricane or a flood caused by climate change, the right to life is indeed directly affected.⁴⁶ The right to survival is also threatened: climate change has already claimed human lives,⁴⁷ and consequently threatens children’s physical survival. As climate impacts keep intensifying, only more children will lose their lives.⁴⁸ The CRC Committee considers that a child’s physical survival and their development can be threatened by adverse living conditions and restricted opportunities for realising human potential.⁴⁹

Climate change can cause these adverse living conditions. For instance, it threatens children’s access to clean water. As of 2022, nearly one billion children faced high or extremely high-water stress, while 470 million children were exposed to high or extremely high drought risk.⁵⁰ Rising floodwaters can even further compound this crisis. It can damage vital infrastructure, contaminate water supplies, and lead to an increase in waterborne diseases, which is a primary cause of death among children under the age of five.⁵¹ The under-five mortality rate constitutes the most important indicator for the fulfilment of the right to life and survival.⁵² Consequently, the right to survival is threatened by climate change

Education

Basic education is one of the most important elements of a child’s development.⁵³ Education constitutes one of the cornerstones of a child rights-based approach to the environment.⁵⁴ The right to education is articulated in Article 28 and 29(1)(e) and is highly vulnerable to the impacts of environmental harm.⁵⁵ These impacts can lead to the destruction or closure of schools, or can cause children to drop out.⁵⁶ The right to development is intertwined with the environment in which they live.⁵⁷

The right to development requires a healthy environment for children, in which they can experience outdoor activities and play in natural environments and the ‘animal world’.⁵⁸ As climate change affects the environment in which children live, and children’s development is intertwined with their environment, climate change jeopardises children’s ability to achieve their full developmental potential.⁵⁹ Protecting and upholding children’s right to life, survival, and development demands urgent action to mitigate climate change⁶⁰. As Sanz-Caballero points out, the stakes are high: the lives of the world’s children depend on the protection of our environment.⁶¹

State action

When a State takes an action, not only must that action respect children’s rights such as non-discrimination and the best interest of the child, it must also respect children’s fundamental and overarching right to development.⁶² Some risk factors include early childhood diseases such as acute respiratory infections and diarrhea, bacterial infection and intestinal infectious diseases.⁶³ The lens of Article 6(2) requires a holistic approach in tackling these risk factors and requires enhancing childcare. This includes access to clean water and sanitation, eradicating hunger, malnutrition and famine, and tackling long-term issues such as poverty.⁶⁴

Conclusion

Children, due to their physiological and developmental vulnerabilities, are disproportionately affected by the adverse impacts of climate change. These impacts include exposure to polluted air, contaminated drinking water, and extreme weather events. Article 6 of the CRC encompasses the rights to life, survival and development. It embodies the principle of indivisibility of human rights and requires a holistic interpretation of the right to life. Article 6 of the CRC requires protecting the conditions that are necessary for their children’s survival and development, such as access to health care, safe drinking water and a healthy environment.

Children are far more likely than adults to live in extreme monetary poverty ánd are more vulnerable to climate change. This way, climate change deepens existing inequalities and contributes to a vicious circle: the most vulnerable children are pushed further into poverty and, simultaneously, will increasingly experience the worst effects of climate change. To address this, immediate urgent attention is required for the present generation of children.

Having touched upon some conditions under which the effects of climate change can threaten the enjoyment of the rights to life, survival and development, the second publication will investigate to what extent a State’s (in)action may constitute a violation of Article 6 of the CRC.

Reference list

Citations

^1. OHCHR (1997), Manual on Human Rights Reporting Under Six Major International Human Rights Instruments, p. 426.
^2. See for example CRC, General Comment No. 26 (2023), CRC/C/GC/26, para. 20 & HRC, General Comment No. 36 (2019), CCPR/C/GC/36, para. 26 & 62.
^3. Synthesis Report of the IPCC 2023, Climate Change 2023, Contribution of Working Groups I, II, and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
^4. IPCC 2023, para A.1.
^5. Waters et al. 2016, p. 1.
^6. Waters et al. 2016, p. 1-8.
^7. IPCC 2023, para. A.2.2.
^8. IPCC 2023, para. A.2.
^9. HRC, General Comment No. 36 (2019), CCPR/C/GC/36, para 2.
^10. UNICEF 2024, p. 54.
^11. Peleg 2019, p. 144.
^12. UNGA (2006), A/RES/60/251, preambular para. 3 & Zylberman 2017, p. 389.
^13. Article 6(2) of the CRC, 20 November 1989.
^14. Sutherland 2015, p. 275-276.
^15. Peleg 2019, p. 144.
^16. Peleg 2019, p. 144.
^17. Peleg 2019, p. 144.
^18. CRC, General Comment No. 5 (2003), GC/2003/5 2003b, para. 12 & Nowak 2005, p. 16.
^19. CRC, General Comment No. 5 (2003), GC/2003/5 2003b, para. 12 & Nowak 2005, p. 16.
^20. Peleg 2019, p. 144.
^21. UNCHR (1988), Report of the Working Group, A/43/12, para 21 & Peleg 2019.
^22. UNCHR (1988), Report of the Working Group, A/43/12, para 21 & Peleg 2019, p. 144.
^23. Peleg & Tobin 2019, p. 198-199.
^24. Peleg & Tobin 2019, p. 198-199.
^25. Peleg & Tobin 2019, p. 199.
^26. Peleg & Tobin 2019, p. 199.
^27. Peleg 2019, p. 146.
^28. Peleg 2019, p. 146.
^29. Peleg 2019, p. 146.
^30. CRC, General Comment No. 5 (2003), GC/2003/5 2003b, para. 12.
^31. CRC, General Comment No. 5 (2003), GC/2003/5 2003b, para. 12.
^32. Freeman 2012, p. 33 & Peleg 2019, p. 147.
^33. Peleg 2019, p. 147.
^34. IPCC 2023, para A.2.
^35. UNICEF 2021, p. 6.
^36. CRC, General Comment No. 26 (2023), CRC/C/GC/26, para 24 & Joint Statement (2020) by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, HRI/2019/1, para. 3.
^37. UNICEF 2021, p. 11.
^38. UNICEF 2023, p. 8.
^39. UNGA (2018), Report of the Special Rapporteur on the issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, A/HRC/37/58, para. 23.
^40. UNGA (2017), Analytical study on the relationship between climate change and the full and effective enjoyment of the rights of the child, HRC/35/13, 2017, para. 13 & UNICEF 2023, p. 4.
^41. UNICEF 2021, p. 68.
^42. UNICEF 2021, p. 68.
^43. UNICEF 2021, p. 71.
^44. Sanz-Cabellero 2013, p. 2.
^45. CRC, General Comment No. 26 (2023), CRC/C/GC/26, para 20.
^46. Bakker 2020, p. 449-450.
^47. IPCC 2023, para A.2.
^48. Van der Heijden, Solomon & Dulk 2025, p. 33.
^49. CRC, General Comment No. 7 (2008), CRC/C/GC/7Rev.1, para 10.
^50. UNICEF 2023, p. 4.
^51. UNICEF 2024, p. 15.
^52. Nowak 2005, p. 40.
^53. CRC (2005), Concluding Observations, Nepal, CRC/C/15/Add.261, para. 60.
^54. CRC, General Comment No. 26 (2023), CRC/C/GC/26, para. 51.
^55. CRC, General Comment No. 26 (2023), CRC/C/GC/26, para. 51 & Bakker 2020, p. 449-450.
^56. CRC, General Comment No. 26 (2023), CRC/C/GC/26, para. 23.
^57. CRC, General Comment No. 26 (2023), CRC/C/GC/26, para. 23.
^58. CRC, General Comment No. 26 (2023), CRC/C/GC/26, para 20 & 23.
^59. CRC, General Comment No. 26 (2023), CRC/C/GC/26, para. 95.
^60. CRC, General Comment No. 26 (2023), CRC/C/GC/26, paras 68-69, 73 & Sanz-Caballero 2013, p. 11.
^61. CRC, General Comment No. 26 (2023), CRC/C/GC/26, paras 68-69, 73 & Sanz-Caballero 2013, p. 11.
^62. Peleg 2019, p. 147-148.
^63. CRC (2005), Concluding Observations, Nepal, CRC/C/15/Add.261, para. 60.
^64. Peleg 2019, p. 146.

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