that protecting children’s rights from global climate change would require “urgent and aggressive reductions in greenhouse gases, guided by the best available science”. 12 Although the Committee has not explicitly addressed climate change in its State reviews of the Philippines to date, its Concluding Observations in both 2005 and 2009 expressed concern regarding environmental problems in the country with clear climate dimensions, highlighting in particular the serious consequences for children’s health and development resulting from air and water pollution and environmental degradation, and regional disparities with regards to access to safe drinking water and sanitation.13 In 2009 the Committee further noted the Philippines’ particular vulnerability to natural disasters, and called on the State to develop and implement an action plan or strategy on assistance and protection of children affected by these events – a step that the Philippines has subsequently taken through the Children’s Relief and Protection Act 2016 (see section 3.3 below).14 The Committee also called on the Philippines to continue to strengthen implementation of domestic environmental laws, to increase children’s knowledge of environmental health issues by introducing dedicated education programmes in schools, and to take effective measures to improve access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities – particularly in rural areas and slums. 3.2 The role and responsibilities of the private sector in relation to child rights and climate change The Committee has also provided guidance with regard to the role of the private sector and environmental harm, recognizing that environmental degradation and contamination resulting from business activities can undermine a range of children’s rights. In its General Comment No 16, the Committee states that: “Environmental degradation and contamination arising from business activities can compromise children’s rights to health, food security and access to safe drinking water and sanitation.”15 The General Comment is equally clear that States must require businesses to undertake mandatory child-rights due diligence in order “to ensure that business enterprises identify, prevent and mitigate their impact on child rights including across their business relationships and within global operations.”16 The Committee further notes that States should ensure children’s access to effective redress mechanisms for violations of their rights resulting from business activities, including those caused by business enterprises extraterritorially “when there is a reasonable link between the State and the conduct concerned”.17 This guidance has obvious implications for the role and responsibilities of businesses in relation to their contribution to climate change and its severe impacts on child rights, both at home and abroad, and particularly as attribution models become increasingly sophisticated.18 In this regard, the Committee also highlights the role that agencies with oversight powers relevant to children’s rights, including national human rights institutions, can play in providing remedies, through, for example, proactively investigating and monitoring abuses, and imposing sanctions on businesses which infringe on children’s rights, where they have regulatory powers that enable them to do so. 19 The Committee underlines that redress mechanisms should take into account the fact that children’s specific vulnerabilities can mean that violations of their rights can be irreversible and result in life-long – and even transgenerational – consequences, and that reparation should therefore be timely to limit ongoing and future damage to the child or children affected. The Committee provides the example that if children are identified as victims of