A/HRC/35/14 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 slowonset 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 5