For the past 30 years, the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States have collaborated through the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) to address crucial environmental challenges facing North America. The recent annual Regular Session in Montreal, Canada, under the theme “Strengthening Environmental Justice through Community Empowerment,” marked the CEC’s 30th anniversary of facilitating trilateral environmental cooperation. Held in a key location in the history of the North American environmental justice movement, the session served as an opportunity to reaffirm commitment to strengthening environmental justice through community empowerment and prioritizing 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. 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. 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 the three countries to work on protecting, restoring and conserving their precious North American environment. They will continue their 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, several successful and reproducible projects implemented by the CEC over the past 30 years were highlighted. These projects serve as examples of the innovative and impactful work undertaken by the CEC; for example, their 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 the CEC reflects on its significant achievements, unwavering commitment and impactful contributions, they reaffirm the commitment made during their first Council Session, in 1995: Improving environmental governance is vital to the CEC’s work and mission, as well as to the commitments of North American leaders. They 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, they are expanding their 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. The CEC was pleased to support four open public forums, including the one on 24 June, which focused on advancing environmental justice in Canada; a forum on 25 June, offering youth leaders the opportunity for direct engagement on their leading role in the fight for environmental justice; the forum on 25 June, on environmental justice, its origins, evolution and emerging policy in Mexico; and the forum on 26 June 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 the three countries, they 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. 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. They 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.
As part of the Council Session, they: “ is proud to host the 31 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 .” – 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 (Semarnat)
The CEC is proud of the work accomplished over 30 years and at this Council Session to further advance their efforts on environmental justice across North America. Achieving environmental justice depends on their commitment to meaningfully tackle inequity, foster inclusion, and make non-discrimination a central pillar of their environmental action. Through their cooperative trilateral agenda, they will continue to engage their historically marginalized and underserved communities, which are often among the most climate-vulnerable communities, to promote inclusion, diversity, equity and non-discrimination in their 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, the CEC will coordinate their 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 their 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. They will also prioritize issues with severe and inequitable impacts on human health, livelihoods and economic productivity.
The CEC strongly supports 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 SEM submission. They reaffirm their commitment to cooperation that will advance the protection of their shared North American environment and to enhance their engagement with the public, youth, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, academia and the private sector. They look forward to their continued trilateral work with the Secretariat, JPAC, TEKEG and youth to advance the protection of their shared North American environment, and to meeting together at the CEC’s 2025 Council Session in Mexico City. SOURCE Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC)
