BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- To 9-year-old Liang Zonghao, in a village of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, "environmental pollution" and "climate change" are best summed up by what his science teacher said in class, "The earth is sick after breathing in bad things."

    But how sick? And why? "There are fewer fish in the rivers and some bad people are doing bad things, like plucking tree leaves, breaking saplings and taking away soil," he answers.

    Beijing girl Yi Tingshuo, 12, confidently attributes environmental problems to human over-exploitation of energy resources and careless emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.

    Despite their different backgrounds and knowledge, the two children have these in common: the earth they live on and the atmosphere around it.

    Children, as defined in the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), are those under 18. As the first legally binding international agreement on the protection of children's rights, the CRC spells out the basic human rights that children everywhere are entitled to, including the right to survival and to develop to the fullest.

    However, these basic rights are being challenged worldwide by environmental problems.

    The United Nation's Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in April 2009that around 60 million people across the world, with 80 percent of them in Asia, are drinking arsenic-contaminated water. Some 4,500 children die every day because of water contamination.

    A report of the World Health Organization (WHO) showed that environmental problems kill 3 million children under five years old each year, making them one of the key contributors in more than 10 million child deaths worldwide each year.

    Hazardous factors include indoor and outdoor air pollution, water pollution, lack of appropriate hygiene facilities and deterioration of ecological systems, it showed.

    A report issued by Xinhua News Agency and the Nielsen market research company on Thursday showed that parents and experts on child-related issues in seven countries, including the United States, India and Nigeria, regard pollution as the biggest threat to children's natural living environment. The report came in the run-up to the Universal Children's Day on Nov. 20, which also marks the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the CRC.

    Using a rating method where the figure 1 means pollution has "very little influence" on children's lives and 5 stands for "very serious influence," the average rating in the survey respondents was 3.9.

    Yi's mother Guo Zhihui, 40, says she feels distraught that children today are being brought up with fewer blue skies and greenery compared with the time when she was a little girl.

    "What I can do for my daughter is to use filtered water at home and make the food as clean as possible," Guo says. "I cannot change the air."

    Guo tries to teach her daughter by setting a personal example as she separates recyclable waste and uses the last tub of water from the washing machine to flush toilet.

    Influenced by her mother and teachers, Yi is now very aware of saving electricity, water and the effects of riding in her father's car. "I would buy a solar-powered car if I can in the future," she says.

    The boy Liang's dream is equally childlike: He wants to become a policeman so he can "arrest the bad guys."

    Tao Kefei, deputy editorial director of monthly Environmental Education magazine, says Chinese children mostly learn about environmental protection in school.

    "Some non-governmental organizations and child centers also contribute to a certain extent," she says. "Also, as more parents have become aware of it, family is now playing a more important role."

    Vera Lehmann, coordinator of a children-targeted environment education project in Beijing funded by Germany's Mercator Fund, says many Chinese are increasingly aware of pollution and the resultant problems.

    "I was surprised to find how much schools in China are willing to contribute to educating the children on environment," Lehmann said. "There has definitely been a change in perception compared with ten years ago when I first traveled here. The efforts of the government are also received positively."

    On June 1, 2008, the government imposed a ban on free plastic shopping bags in supermarkets, which reduced the use of plastic bags by 66 percent in a year, equal to 40 billion fewer bags nationwide.

    As of September 2009, Beijing had upgraded or banned more than 90,000 vehicles that failed to meet the city's emission standards. The city's environmental protection authorities said in September that its air quality had been the best in the past decade, with 18more "blue sky days" compared with the same period of last year.

    The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planner, drafted a long-term plan for renewable energy use in 2007 and promised that the government would provide stimulus policies to encourage companies to develop renewable energy sources.

    According to the NDRC, China is the world's largest producer of solar heaters and the third largest manufacturer of photovoltaic cells. The installed capacity of nuclear power has topped 9 million kilowatts and is expected to reach 70 million kilowatts by 2020.