A/HRC/35/14 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 wellbeing, climate change posed a threat to children’s cultural identity and to the preservation of their connections with the natural environment. 7