A/HRC/37/58 States. The present section focuses on key educational and procedural obligations, including with respect to information, participation and remedy; substantive obligations, including the obligation to ensure that the best interests of children are a primary consideration; and obligations of non-discrimination. A. Educational and procedural obligations 39. The obligations of States in relation to the environment include duties in relation to education and public awareness, to access to public information and assessment of proposed projects and policies, to expression, association and public participation in environmental decision-making and to remedies for harm (see A/HRC/37/59, annex, framework principles 5–10). These obligations have bases in civil and political rights, but they have been clarified and extended in the environmental context on the basis of the entire range of human rights threatened by environmental harm. Fulfilling these rights helps to ensure that, when possible, children have agency to influence environmental policy and protect themselves from environmental harm. 1. Obligations of environmental education 40. In the Convention on the Rights of the Child, States parties agreed that the education of the child shall be directed to, among other things, the development of respect for the natural environment (art. 29).53 Environmental education should begin early in the child’s educational process, reflect the child’s culture, language and environmental situation, and increase the child’s understanding of the relationship between humans and the environment (see A/HRC/37/59, annex, framework principle 6). It should help children appreciate and enjoy the world and strengthen their capacity to respond to environmental challenges, including by encouraging and facilitating direct experience with the natural environment. 54 41. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has stated that in order to develop respect for the natural environment, education must link issues of environment and sustainable development with socioeconomic, sociocultural and demographic issues, and that such respect should be learned by children at home, in school and within the community, encompass both national and international problems, and actively involve children in local, regional or global environmental projects. 55 The Committee has also stressed that for educational curricula to reflect this and the other principles reflected in article 29 of the Convention, it is essential to have pre-service and in-service training for teachers and others involved in children’s education. 2. Obligations of information and assessment 42. The Convention on the Rights of the Child states that the child’s right to freedom of expression “shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice” (art. 13). The right to information is particularly important in relation to environmental issues. Public access to environmental information enables individuals to understand the effect of environmental harm on their rights, including their rights to life and health, and supports the exercise of other rights, such as rights to expression, participation and remedy. 56 43. Access to environmental information has two dimensions: States should regularly collect, update and disseminate environmental information, and they should provide affordable, effective and timely access to environmental information held by public authorities (see A/HRC/37/59, annex, framework principle 7). In situations involving 53 54 55 56 In addition, target 4.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals calls on States to ensure, by 2030, that “all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development”. Committee on the Rights of the Child, “Report of the 2016 day of general discussion”, pp. 18–19. See Committee on the Rights of the Child, general comment No. 1 (2001) on the aims of education, para. 13. See Committee on the Rights of the Child, general comment No. 12 (2009) on the right of the child to be heard, para. 82. 11