WILMINGTON, N.C., June 26,
2024 /PRNewswire/ - For the past 30 years, the
governments of Canada,
Mexico and the United States have worked together through
the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) to advance
solutions for the most crucial environmental challenges facing
North America. We met today for
the annual Regular Session in Wilmington,
North Carolina, under the theme: "Strengthening
Environmental Justice through Community Empowerment," marking the
CEC's 30th year of facilitating trilateral environmental
cooperation.
In this key location in the history of the North American
environmental justice movement, we take this opportunity to
reaffirm our commitment to strengthening environmental justice
through community empowerment and prioritizing our efforts to
address the concerns of historically marginalized and underserved
communities across North
America.
This year's Council Session centered on opportunities for
advancing environmental justice actions in North America that will help empower
communities. Some of these opportunities include actions to improve
air quality in disadvantaged neighborhoods, fostering interactions
between community leaders and public officials on environmental
justice issues, and meaningful engagement with key groups,
including youth leaders.
Three Decades of Regional Environmental Cooperation
The CEC has been the cornerstone of trilateral cooperation on
environmental issues in North
America for the past 30 years. This strong partnership has
enabled us to work on protecting, restoring and conserving our
precious North American environment. We will continue our joint
trilateral work through the CEC in order to address present and
future environmental challenges, including the triple planetary
crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
Throughout the Council Session, we were able to highlight several
successful and reproducible projects that have been implemented by
the CEC over the past 30 years. These projects serve as examples of
the innovative and impactful work that the CEC has undertaken; for
example, our work on monarch conservation, efforts to tackle food
loss and food waste, and ways to phase out and manage harmful
chemicals such as dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) and lead
acid in batteries in North
America.
Celebrating 30 years of dedicated work is a remarkable
milestone. As we reflect on the CEC's significant achievements,
unwavering commitment and impactful contributions, we confirm the
commitment done during our first Council Session, in 1995:
"The environment knows no borders. The air we
breathe, the water we drink, the animals which move freely, all
bind us together. But with these shared resources comes a
collective responsibility. Only by working together will we solve
North America's most pressing
environmental problems in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
In this way, we can make the North American region an environmental
example for the rest of the world."—CEC Ministerial Statement,
Oaxaca, Mexico, 13 October 1995
Strengthening Environmental Justice through Community
Empowerment
Improving environmental governance is vital to the work of the
CEC and to the CEC's mission, as well as to the commitments of our
North American leaders. We must continue to advance
non-discrimination, increase diversity and foster social
equity and inclusion, particularly for Black, Indigenous, and
People of Color (BIPOC), 2SLGBTQIA+ and other communities, women,
children, youth, migrants, and other historically marginalized and
disadvantaged groups.
Through the work of the CEC, we are expanding our common
understanding of the concepts of environmental justice and the
intersection between environmental burdens and social
vulnerabilities of impacted North American groups and communities,
while leveraging the experiences of community leaders, academia,
civil society organizations and businesses.
We were pleased to support four open public forums, including
the Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC) Public
Forum on 24 June, which focused on advancing environmental
justice in North America; a
Youth Panel on 25 June, offering youth leaders the
opportunity for direct engagement on their leading role in the
fight for environmental justice; the CEC Executive Director's
panel on 25 June, on environmental justice, its origins,
evolution and emerging policy in North
America; and the 26 June Council Public Meeting on
ways to strengthen approaches to achieving environmental justice
through community empowerment. These events provided invaluable
opportunities for participants to share knowledge and exchange
information and views among themselves and with the Council members
and offered the general public a space for questions, comments and
suggestions on the CEC's cooperative work.
These events included both in-person and virtual attendance,
with broad representation of diverse groups of interested
individuals and actors from across North
America. Through the discussion of many and diverse examples
of environmental justice actions that have taken place in each of
our countries, we had the opportunity to increase environmental
justice knowledge and best practices to promote access to
information, meaningful participation and engagement, as well as
access to justice, which are all key pillars of the environmental
justice movement.
Our exchanges and interactions during the Council Session with
both the CEC Joint Public Advisory Committee and with the
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) Expert Group were fruitful
and inspirational. We exchanged ideas on how to work
collaboratively to tackle the triple planetary crisis, while also
building a just, equitable and sustainable future for everyone,
particularly in the region's most historically marginalized and
disadvantaged communities.
Announcements and New Initiatives
As part of the Council Session, we:
- Committed US$1.5 million for the
fourth cycle of the CEC's Environmental Justice and Climate
Resilience grant program (EJ4Climate), which provides funding
directly to community-based organizations and seeks to support
environmental justice by enabling communities to advance solutions
and partnerships to address their environmental and human health
vulnerabilities, particularly those due to climate impacts. The
theme for the fourth cycle is Community-led education programs
to increase environmental justice and climate adaptation
knowledge.
- Contributed C$500,000 to launch a
new North American Environmental Justice Action Center (NAEJAC), a
resource platform that will bring together community
representatives, advocates and public officials from across our
three countries to share and leverage best practices and tools for
environmental justice. This platform also aims to identify
opportunities to promote equitable and inclusive environmental
justice actions across North
America that will help our countries exchange knowledge and
best practices with the goal of addressing inequities in
historically marginalized and disadvantaged communities and
sectors.
- We launched the following new initiatives:
- Support for monarch butterfly science
- Data exchange system for hazardous waste transfers
- Using large-scale public events to catalyze collective shifts
toward food waste reduction
- Sharing best practices for environmentally sound management of
used lead acid
- First Generation of Environmental Leaders Program cohort
"The United States is proud to
host the 31st CEC Council Session and to reaffirm our
commitment to advancing environmental justice and community
empowerment through our collaborative work with the CEC.
Strengthening environmental governance, and ensuring equitable
access to clean air, water and land for all, especially
historically underserved communities, is central to our mission.
This year's focus on empowering communities and fostering
meaningful engagement is crucial for building a just, inclusive and
sustainable future. We will continue to work closely with our
partners in Canada and
Mexico, as well as with local
communities, youth leaders and Indigenous groups, to tackle our
most urgent environmental challenges, protect public health and
promote environmental justice across North America."—Janet McCabe, United States
Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Administrator.
"As we tackle the challenges of the triple planetary crisis of
climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, the cooperation
between our three countries, through the CEC, is more important
than ever. We have delivered important contributions to the
environment, including food loss and waste initiatives, the
Generation of Environmental Leaders program and cross-cutting
environmental justice work. The CEC remains a crucial partner
in delivering these initiatives that address our shared regional
challenges."—Sandra McCardell, Assistant Deputy Minister,
International Affairs, Environment and Climate Change Canada
"The government of Mexico
acknowledges the right of communities to a healthy environment, and
therefore puts a priority on guaranteeing equitable and sustainable
access to the benefits flowing from the use of natural resources,
while also promoting and strengthening the participation of
indigenous peoples and local communities in environmental
decision-making, with respect for their knowledge and ways of life,
in accordance with the initiatives, programs, and projects
implemented by the CEC in the North American region."—Iván Rico
López, Undersecretary for Environmental and Natural Resources of
the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources of
Mexico (Semarnat)
Moving Forward
We are proud of the work that we have accomplished over 30 years
and at this Council Session to further advance our efforts on
environmental justice across North
America. Achieving environmental justice depends on our
commitment to meaningfully tackle inequity, foster
inclusion, and make non-discrimination a central pillar of our
environmental action. Through our cooperative trilateral agenda, we
will continue to engage our historically marginalized and
underserved communities, which are often among the most
climate-vulnerable communities, to promote inclusion, diversity,
equity and non-discrimination in our environmental work in
North America.
As a first step, the CEC will develop guidance and tools on
environmental justice that will include best practices with respect
to effective laws, policies and programs that can help foster
better access to relevant information, examples on how to improve
access to justice and compliance with environmental laws, and also
promote more meaningful engagement and participation by key groups.
In order to promote Indigenous engagement and partnerships, the CEC
will continue working with the TEK expert group to develop North
American Principles for the incorporation of Traditional Ecological
Knowledge in the CEC's work and policies for meaningful engagement
and working with Traditional Ecological Knowledge.
In line with key international efforts, we will coordinate our
cooperative work to improve the wellbeing of North Americans by
advancing actions that address all aspects of the triple crises of
climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. This entails
aligning our climate policies and strategies with limiting warming
to 1.5 degrees Celsius and implementing these policies and
strategies, supporting biodiversity conservation to achieve the
goals and targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity
Framework, and addressing pollution in support of a future global
agreement on plastics pollution. We will also prioritize issues
with severe and inequitable impacts on human health, livelihoods
and economic productivity.
We strongly support and will continue to support the CEC
Submission on Enforcement Matters (SEM) process, as demonstrated
this past year by signing a Council Resolution for the Hydraulic
Fracturing SEM submission.
We reaffirm our commitment to cooperation that will advance the
protection of our shared North American environment and to enhance
our engagement with the public, youth, Indigenous Peoples, local
communities, academia and the private sector.
We look forward to our continued trilateral work with the
Secretariat, JPAC, TEKEG and youth to advance the protection of our
shared North American environment, and to meeting together at
the CEC's 2025 Council Session in Mexico.
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SOURCE Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC)