34 Boshoff/Protecting the African child in a changing climate and support an interpretation of existing obligations which include these commitments. 3.2 Right to development and clean environment Interestingly, the African Children’s Rights Charter nowhere provides for environmental rights for children. The closest it comes to this is in article 14 where it provides that every child shall have the right to enjoy the best attainable state of physical, mental and spiritual health, which may imply that they must have a healthy environment which is not detrimental to their health. While there is reference to ‘development’ in article 5, this is not development in the same sense as understood under the African Charter. In article 5 of the African Children’s Rights Charter development solely relates to the development of the child, which is completely different from the peoples’ right to development provided in article 22 of the African Charter. It is also dissimilar from article 24 of the African Charter which provides for a general satisfactory environment favourable to peoples’ development. It is not clear why the drafters of the African Children’s Rights Charter did not have regard to the environmental human rights of children, or whether perhaps they thought that it was sufficiently covered by the African Charter. However, they clearly did not conceive of the far-reaching consequences of climate change, along with other environmental degradation currently experienced which is detrimental to the wellbeing of children,46 in drafting this instrument. In stark contrast, the African Women’s Rights Protocol does provide for the right of women to live in a healthy and sustainable environment and provides extensively for their rights to participation in management and preservation, development of renewable energy and other technologies, the development of women’s indigenous knowledge systems and management and disposal of domestic and toxic waste.47 In addition, the African Women’s Rights Protocol provides for the right of women to sustainable development, including participation in development of policies and access to and control over resources.48 In this regard, while the girl child is not protected from environmental degradation under the African Children’s Rights Charter, the African Women’s Rights Protocol, which applies to all women, irrespective of their age (to the extent applicable), goes some way to providing a basis for the protection of rights threatened by climate change, for example where they relate to plans and policies to mitigate climate change through adoption of renewable energy sources and national development strategies. Ironically, this thus means that under the African regional human rights system, the rights of girls to a healthy environment and 46 Including the destruction of biodiversity, pollution of land, sea and air with plastic particles and other waste and the extinction of species. 47 Article 18(1) of the African Women’s Rights Protocol. 48 Article 19, particularly 19(b) and (c), of the African Women’s Rights Protocol.