While global climate summits often conclude with procedural victories, a special investigation reveals a catastrophic disconnect between these paper promises and the on-the-ground reality for children. This gap is not just a policy failure; it’s a financial and bureaucratic black hole, one starkly illustrated by Pakistan’s 14-year cycle of failed adaptation.

A fundamental shift in the climate and child rights debate began not at a COP, but with a legal document. In August 2023, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child adopted General Comment No. 26 (GC26). This was not just another UN report; it was the Committee’s authoritative interpretation of the CRC.

For the first time, it affirmed that children have a right to a “clean, healthy and sustainable environment”. Crucially, GC26 clarifies that states have binding legal obligations to protect children from climate change’s adverse effects. It demands that states assess the climate vulnerabilities of essential services like “water and sanitation, health care, nutrition and education”.

Armed with this new legal tool, UNICEF and other advocates used GC26 as their central “ask” for the COP28 summit in Dubai, demanding that children be moved from the preamble to the agenda. And they succeeded. The final COP28 decision formally “requested… an expert dialogue on children and climate change”. This dialogue, held in Bonn in June 2024, was called a “historic milestone”-the first time in 30 years that children’s vulnerabilities were formally considered.

The evidence presented was damning. The dialogue’s summary report confirmed a massive finance gap, citing data that “just 2.4% of........

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