CRC/C/88/D/104/2019 of human rights, including rights under the Convention,19 the Committee considers that the potential harm of the State party’s acts or omissions regarding the carbon emissions originating in its territory was reasonably foreseeable to the State party. 10.12 Having concluded that the State party has effective control over the sources of emissions that contribute to causing reasonably foreseeable harm to children outside its territory, the Committee must now determine whether there is a sufficient causal link between the harm alleged by the authors and the State party’s actions or omissions for the purposes of establishing jurisdiction. In this regard, the Committee observes, in line with the position of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, that not every negative impact in cases of transboundary damage gives rise to the responsibility of the State in whose territory the activities causing transboundary harm took place, that the possible grounds for jurisdiction must be justified based on the particular circumstances of the specific case, and that the harm needs to be “significant”.20 In this regard, the Committee notes that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights observed that, in the articles on prevention of transboundary harm from hazardous activities, the International Law Commission referred only to those activities that may involve significant transboundary harm and that “significant” harm should be understood as something more than “detectable” but need not be at the level of “serious” or “substantial”. The Court further noted that the harm must lead to a real detrimental effect on matters such as, for example, human health, industry, property, environment or agriculture in other States, and that such detrimental effects must be susceptible of being measured by factual and objective standards.21 Victim status 10.13 In the specific circumstances of the present case, the Committee notes the authors’ claims that their rights under the Convention have been violated by the respondent States parties’ acts and omissions in contributing to climate change and their claims that said harm will worsen as the world continues to warm up. It notes the authors’ claims: that smoke from wildfires and heat-related pollution has caused some of the authors’ asthma to worsen, requiring hospitalizations; that the spread and intensification of vector-borne diseases has also affected the authors, resulting in some of them contracting malaria multiple times a year or contracting dengue or chikungunya; that the authors have been exposed to extreme heatwaves, causing serious threats to the health of many of them; that drought is threatening water security for some of the authors; that some of the authors have been exposed to extreme storms and flooding; that life at a subsistence level is at risk for the indigenous authors; that, due to the rising sea level, the Marshall Islands and Palau are at risk of becoming uninhabitable within decades; and that climate change has affected the mental health of the authors, some of whom claim to suffer from climate anxiety. The Committee considers that, as children, the authors are particularly affected by climate change, both in terms of the manner in which they experience its effects and the potential of climate change to have an impact on them throughout their lifetimes, particularly if immediate action is not taken. Due to the particular impact on children, and the recognition by States parties to the Convention that children are entitled to special safeguards, including appropriate legal protection, States have heightened obligations to protect children from foreseeable harm.22 19 20 21 22 12 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis – Working Group I Contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 2013), and “Global warming of 1.5°C: summary for policymakers”, formally approved at the First Joint Session of Working Groups I, II and III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and accepted by the Panel at its forty-eighth session, held in Incheon, Republic of Korea, on 6 October 2018. Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Advisory Opinion OC-23/17, paras. 81 and 102. Ibid., para. 136, and A/56/10, A/56/10/Corr.1 and A/56/10/Corr.2, chap. V.E.2, commentary on draft article 2 of the draft articles on the prevention of transboundary harm from hazardous activities. Preamble to the Convention on the Rights of the Child; A/HRC/31/52, para. 81; and Committee on the Rights of the Child, “Report of the 2016 day of general discussion: children’s rights and the environment”, p. 23. Available from https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/crc/pages/discussion2016.aspx.