A/HRC/35/14 climate change obligations; to describe how social media could be used to disseminate climate change-related information; to identify critical steps to be taken at the international level to address the specific challenges that climate change poses to the protection of children’s rights in developing countries; and to outline the basic actions needed to safeguard children’s rights and promote intergenerational equity. C. Responses and concluding remarks 38. During and after the interactive discussion, the moderator gave panellists the opportunity to respond to questions and to make concluding remarks. She observed that there was a common concern among States regarding the impacts of climate change on children’s rights. With regard to her own country’s actions on this issue, she stated that the Philippines had adopted and implemented emergency relief policies that had established child- and women-friendly transitional shelters for orphans and for separated and unaccompanied children; called for heightened surveillance work against child trafficking during disaster and post-disaster situations; developed a system to restore and reconstruct lost documentation in the aftermath of disasters; promoted child-responsive training programmes for community school personnel, for rescuers and for disaster responders; improved guidelines to reunite separated children with their families and relatives (a frequent issue on the ground); and involved children in disaster risk reduction planning and post-disaster needs assessments. She directed several questions that had been raised during the interactive dialogue to the panellists, asking them to consider, in particular, the role of the Human Rights Council with regard to protecting children’s rights from the negative impacts of climate change, how the Council could promote a more harmonized approach between all actors, and how to best ensure that State obligations to protect children’s rights in the context of climate change were met at the international level. 39. The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Viet Nam emphasized the need to build a climate-literate generation — through child-centred climate change policies, engaging families, schools and communities in children’s climate education, and encouraging child participation in climate processes. Vietnamese climate policies were child-centred, encouraged stakeholder engagement at the national and international levels and kept children informed about climate change through television programmes and other media platforms. He also noted that international cooperation, and support from the United Nations, were both critical to addressing the adverse impacts of climate change on children’s rights. Viet Nam had enjoyed effective support and cooperation from the United Nations with regard to researching and assessing climate impacts on children’s rights, awareness-raising efforts, and disaster risk reduction for children. Work had been undertaken in collaboration with different government ministries to assess climate impacts on children’s health, on their education and on their access to social services. The United Nations, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, had worked to integrate climate change into school curricula across all ages. Viet Nam had also worked alongside United Nations agencies, particularly UNICEF, to develop a disaster risk reduction programme. Generally, this type of cooperation was critical to State efforts to pursue a sustainable, rights-based approach to climate change. 40. Citing an example from his own country, the Permanent Representative of Bangladesh emphasized the need to share best practices. The city of Rajshahi, Bangladesh, had gone from being one of the most polluted cities in the world to achieving a 67.2 per cent reduction of some forms of harmful pollutants by sending engineers to cities around the world to seek out best practices to reduce fossil fuel consumption. Among other things, they replaced fossil fuel-based transportation systems with sustainable ones and undertook afforestation programmes. The Permanent Representative also addressed State responsibilities at the international level, including implementation of the Paris Agreement. He noted that States should be conscious of the importance of awareness-building, which increased public pressure on leaders to do the right thing. National legislatures needed to be aware of climate issues and better understand the relationship between human rights, a healthy environment and development. In that respect, the Permanent Representative 9