A/HRC/10/61 page 17 49. As today’s children and young persons will shape the world of tomorrow, children are central actors in promoting behaviour change required to mitigate the effects of global warming. Children’s knowledge and awareness of climate change also influence wider households and community actions.71 Education on environmental matters among children is crucial and various initiatives at national and international levels seek to engage children and young people as actors in the climate change agenda.72 50. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which enjoys near universal ratification, obliges States to take action to ensure the realization of all rights in the Convention for all children in their jurisdiction, including measures to safeguard children’s right to life, survival and development through, inter alia, addressing problems of environmental pollution and degradation. Importantly, children must be recognized as active participants and stewards of natural resources in the promotion and protection of a safe and healthy environment.73 3. Indigenous peoples 51. Climate change, together with pollution and environmental degradation, poses a serious threat to indigenous peoples, who often live in marginal lands and fragile ecosystems which are particularly sensitive to alterations in the physical environment.74 Climate change-related impacts have already led to the relocation of Inuit communities in polar regions and affected their traditional livelihoods. Indigenous peoples inhabiting low-lying island States face similar pressures, threatening their cultural identity which is closely linked to their traditional lands and livelihoods.75 52. Indigenous peoples have been voicing their concern about the impacts of climate change on their collective human rights and their rights as distinct peoples.76 In particular, indigenous peoples have stressed the importance of giving them a voice in policymaking on climate change at both national and international levels and of taking into account and building upon their 71 UNICEF UK (see footnote 69 above), p. 29. 72 For example, UNEP and UNICEF have developed an environmental resource pack for child-friendly schools designed to empower children (see footnote 69 above, UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, p. 28). 73 See e.g. CRC, general comment No. 4 (2003) on adolescent health and development in the context of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 74 M. Macchi and others, Indigenous and Traditional Peoples and Climate Change, International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2008. 75 See e.g. report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples, A/HRC/4/32, para. 49. 76 In April 2008, the Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues stated that climate change “is an urgent and immediate threat to human rights” (E/C.19/2008/13, para. 23).