CRC/C/GC/26 (g) Closely regulate and eliminate, as appropriate, the production, sale, use and release of toxic substances that have disproportionate adverse health effects on children, in particular those substances that are developmental neurotoxins.18 66. Procedural elements, including access to information, participation in decisionmaking and child-friendly access to justice, with effective remedies, have equal importance to the empowerment of children, including through education, to become agents of their own destiny. 67. States should incorporate children’s right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment into their national legislation and take adequate measures to implement it in order to strengthen accountability. This right should be mainstreamed across all decisions and measures concerning children, including policies related to education, leisure, play, access to green spaces, child protection, children’s health and migration, and national frameworks for the implementation of the Convention. IV. General measures of implementation (art. 4) Obligation of States to respect, protect and fulfil children’s rights A. 68. States must ensure a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in order to respect, protect and fulfil children’s rights. The obligation to respect children’s rights requires States to refrain from violating them by causing environmental harm. They shall protect children against environmental damage from other sources and third parties, including by regulating business enterprises. States parties are also under the obligation to prevent and remediate the impacts of environmental hazards on children’s rights, even where such threats are beyond human control, for example, by establishing inclusive early warning systems. States must take urgent steps to fulfil their obligation to facilitate, promote and provide for the enjoyment by children of their rights, including their right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, such as by transitioning to clean energy and adopting strategies and programmes to ensure the sustainable use of water resources. 69. States have a due diligence obligation to take appropriate preventive measures to protect children against reasonably foreseeable environmental harm and violations of their rights, paying due regard to the precautionary principle. This includes assessing the environmental impacts of policies and projects, identifying and preventing foreseeable harm, mitigating such harm if it is not preventable and providing for timely and effective remedies to redress both foreseeable and actual harm. 70. States are also obliged to respect, protect and fulfil children’s rights that are exercised in relation to the environment. The obligation to respect rights requires that they refrain from any action that would limit children’s right to express their views on matters relating to the environment and from impeding access to accurate environmental information, and protect children from misinformation concerning environmental risks and from the risk of violence or other reprisals. The obligation to fulfil rights requires that States combat negative societal attitudes to children’s right to be heard and to facilitate their meaningful participation in environmental decision-making. 71. States must take deliberate, specific and targeted steps towards achieving the full and effective enjoyment of children’s rights related to the environment, including their right to a healthy environment, including through the development of legislation, policies, strategies or plans that are science-based and consistent with relevant international guidelines related to environmental health and safety and by refraining from taking retrogressive measures that are less protective of children. 72. States are obliged to devote financial, natural, human, technological, institutional and informational resources to realize children’s rights in relation to the environment to the 18 12 See A/HRC/49/53. GE.23-11144