The health and wellbeing of children now and in the future depends on overcoming new challenges that are escalating at such speed as to threaten the progress and successes of the past two decades in child health. The climate emergency is rapidly undermining the future survival of all species, and the likelihood of a world in which all children enjoy their right to health appears increasingly out of reach. A second existential threat that is more insidious has emerged: predatory commercial exploitation that is encouraging harmful and addictive activities that are extremely deleterious to young people’s health.
Key messages:

1) The health and rights of all children and adolescents are under threat. Some of the most pressing harms include a rapidly changing climate, mass commercial marketing of harmful products like sugar, fast food, tobacco and alcohol, and growing inequities.
2) When we invest in children, we invest in the future. Investing in a child’s health, development and their environment bring benefits throughout life, and across generations.
3) We call on governments, civil society, communities and young people around the world to join a global movement that puts child and adolescent health at the centre of the Sustainable Development Goals. Threats to their health and wellbeing must be addressed, ensuring no child is left behind.
4) Strong, unified action today – including stopping greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible -is the only way to promote children’s healthy growth and development and protect their rights.
5) A global movement for children cannot take place without them at the heart. Children and youth must be invited into, meaningfully engaged, and their views respected as key stakeholders in decision making and policies that affect their health and their futures.

The WHO–UNICEF–Lancet Commission lays the foundations for a new global movement for child health that addresses these two crises and presents high-level recommendations that position children at the centre of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The world around us is changing and society needs to adapt. Investing in the health of children is proven to bring the best possible return for future generations, and this Commission provides a framework and structure to that end. The power of children's voices has emerged over the past 2 years as a source of hope. Their collective concerns must now be heard, and effective actions taken to prevent the next generation inheriting an irreversibly damaged planet. The task at hand is urgent and immense, but we and the Commission are optimistic that it is still possible to change the world for the better, for and with children. There can be no excuses, and no time to lose.

Children are also the most vulnerable to the lifelong environmental effects caused by climate change arising from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and from industry-linked pollution of the air, water, and land.
We live in an era like no other. Our children face a future of great opportunity, but they stand on the precipice of a
climate crisis. Working together, the world’s countries have agreed to the SDG framework to usher future generations into a cleaner, healthier world, but the SDG agenda has yet to gain traction. Our challenge is great and we seem to be paralysed.

This Commission proposes a new global movement to place children at the centre of the SDGs. The CRC is the world’s most ratified human rights treaty, showing the power of children to unite us for the common good.
Working to improve children’s health and wellbeing can motivate all of us to save our planet for them and for ourselves.
In this Commission, we have purposefully taken a highlevel view of the problem of child health and wellbeing.

For both planetary sustainability and child wellbeing, clean energy remains a huge development challenge. In 2016, around 3 billion people (1·9 billion in developing countries in Asia and 850 million in sub-Saharan Africa) were without clean cooking fuel or technologies, creating harmful indoor air pollution estimated to cause 3·8 million deaths per year.
The CRC document(UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)) emphasises environment and pollution (Article 24),350 and the importance of environmental education (Articles 29).350 Therefore, environmental action must be monitored to understand how well we are doing in creating a world we want for our children. As such, this dashboard could be seen as a detailed, actionable companion to the child flourishing and futures profile.