CRC/C/88/D/104/2019 has violated their rights under articles 6, 24 and 30, read in conjunction with article 3, of the Convention.1 The Optional Protocol entered into force for the State party on 14 July 2015. 1.2 On 20 November 2019, pursuant to article 8 of the Optional Protocol and rule 18 (4) of the Committee’s rules of procedure under the Optional Protocol, the working group on communications, acting on behalf of the Committee, requested the State party to submit its observations on the admissibility of the communication separately from its observations on the merits. Facts as submitted by the authors 2. The authors claim that, by causing and perpetuating climate change, the State party has failed to take the necessary preventive and precautionary measures to respect, protect and fulfil the authors’ rights to life, health and culture. They claim that the climate crisis is not an abstract future threat. The 1.1°C rise in global average temperature is currently causing devastating heatwaves, forest fires, extreme weather patterns, floods and sea level rise, and fostering the spread of infectious diseases, infringing on the human rights of millions of people globally. Given that children are among the most vulnerable, physiologically and mentally, to these life-threatening impacts, they will bear a far heavier burden and for far longer than adults.2 Complaint 3.1 The authors argue that every day of delay in taking the necessary measures depletes the remaining “carbon budget”, the amount of carbon that can still be emitted before the climate reaches unstoppable and irreversible ecological and human health tipping points. They argue that the State party, among other States, is creating an imminent risk as it will be impossible to recover lost mitigation opportunities and it will be impossible to ensure the sustainable and safe livelihood of future generations. 3.2 The authors contend that the climate crisis is a children’s rights crisis. The States parties to the Convention are obliged to respect, protect and fulfill children’s inalienable right to life, from which all other rights flow. Mitigating climate change is a human rights imperative. In the context of the climate crisis, obligations under international human rights law are informed by the rules and principles of international environmental law. The authors argue that the State party has failed to uphold its obligations under the Convention to: (a) prevent foreseeable domestic and extraterritorial human rights violations resulting from climate change; (b) cooperate internationally in the face of the global climate emergency; (c) apply the precautionary principle to protect life in the face of uncertainty; and (d) ensure intergenerational justice for children and posterity. Article 6 3.3 The authors claim that the State party’s acts and omissions perpetuating the climate crisis have already exposed them throughout their childhoods to the foreseeable, lifethreatening risks of climate change caused by humans, be they in the forms of heat, floods, storms, droughts, disease or polluted air. A scientific consensus shows that the lifethreatening risks confronting them will increase throughout their lives as the world heats up by 1.5°C above the pre-industrial era and beyond. Article 24 3.4 The authors claim that the State party’s acts and omissions perpetuating the climate crisis have already harmed their mental and physical health, with effects ranging from asthma to emotional trauma. The harm violates their right to health under article 24 of the Convention and will become worse as the world continues to warm up. Smoke from the wildfires in Paradise, California, in the United States caused Alexandria Villaseñor’s asthma to flare up 1 2 2 The authors have submitted the same complaint against Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey. The five complaints are registered as communications No. 104/2019 to No. 108/2019. For further information on the facts as presented by the authors, see Sacchi et al. v. Germany (CRC/C/88/D/107/2019), paras. 2.1–2.6.