CRC/C/88/D/104/2019 dangerously, sending her to hospital. Heat-related pollution in Lagos, Nigeria, has led to Deborah Adegbile being hospitalized regularly due to asthma attacks. The spread and intensification of vector-borne diseases has also affected the authors. In Lagos, Deborah now suffers from malaria multiple times a year. In the Marshall Islands, Ranton Anjain contracted dengue in 2019. David Ackley III contracted chikungunya, a disease new to the Marshall Islands since 2015. Extreme heatwaves, which have increased in frequency because of climate change, have been a serious threat to the health of many of the authors. High temperatures are not only deadly; they can cause a wide range of health impacts, including heat cramps, heatstroke, hyperthermia and exhaustion, and can also quickly worsen existing health conditions. Drought is also threatening water security for many petitioners, such as Raslen Jbeili, Catarina Lorenzo and Ayakha Melithafa. Article 30 3.5 The authors claim that the State party’s contributions to the climate crisis have already jeopardized the millenniums-old subsistence practices of the indigenous authors from Alaska in the United States, the Marshall Islands and the Sapmi areas of Sweden. Those subsistence practices are not just the main source of their livelihoods, but directly relate to a specific way of being, seeing and acting in the world that is essential to their cultural identity. Article 3 3.6 By supporting climate policies that delay decarbonization, the State party is shifting the enormous burden and costs of climate change onto children and future generations. In doing so, it has breached its duty to ensure the enjoyment of children’s rights for posterity and has failed to act in accordance with the principle of intergenerational equity. The authors note that, while their complaint documents the violation of their rights under the Convention, the scope of the climate crisis should not be reduced to the harm suffered by a small number of children. Ultimately, at stake are the rights of every child, everywhere. If the State party, acting alone and in concert with other States, does not immediately take the measures available to stop the climate crisis, the devastating effects of climate change will nullify the ability of the Convention to protect the rights of any child, anywhere. No State acting rationally in the best interests of the child would ever impose this burden on any child by choosing to delay taking such measures. The only cost-benefit analysis that would justify any of the respondents’ policies is one that discounts children’s lives and prioritizes short-term economic interests over the rights of the child. Placing a lesser value on the best interests of the authors and other children in the climate actions of the State party is in direct violation of article 3 of the Convention. 3.7 The authors request that the Committee find: (a) that climate change is a children’s rights crisis; (b) that the State party, along with other States, has caused and is perpetuating the climate crisis by knowingly acting in disregard of the available scientific evidence regarding the measures needed to prevent and mitigate climate change; and (c) that, by perpetuating life-threatening climate change, the State party is violating the authors’ rights to life, health and the prioritization of the best interests of the child, as well as the cultural rights of the authors from indigenous communities. 3.8 The authors further request that the Committee recommend: (a) that the State party review and, where necessary, amend its laws and policies to ensure that mitigation and adaptation efforts are accelerated to the maximum extent of available resources and on the basis of the best available scientific evidence to protect the authors’ rights and make the best interests of the child a primary consideration, particularly in allocating the costs and burdens of climate change mitigation and adaption; (b) that the State party initiate cooperative international action – and increase its efforts with respect to existing cooperative initiatives – to establish binding and enforceable measures to mitigate the climate crisis, prevent further harm to the authors and other children, and secure their inalienable rights; and (c) that pursuant to article 12 of the Convention, the State party ensure the child’s right to be heard and to express his or her views freely, in all international, national and subnational efforts to mitigate or adapt to the climate crisis and in all efforts taken in response to the authors’ communication. 3