Agenda for JPAC public workshop Resilient Communities in North America announced
Montreal, 29 June 2012—Over two days in New Orleans, July 9 and 10, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation’s Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC) will discuss and debate with key North American sustainability practitioners, community leaders and concerned citizens on how the continent’s communities can become resilient to environmental shifts like climate change, and disasters like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Lead by expert facilitator Greg Judelman from The Moment, participants in the workshop Resilient Communities in North America will get their inspiration from Craig Applegath, founding member of ResilientCity.org; Madeleine Redfern, Mayor of Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada; Fernando Aragón, an international consultant on climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and policy; Dr. Beverly Wright, Founder and Executive Director, Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University; Dr. Maureen Lichtveld, Freeport McMoRan Chair of Environmental Policy, Tulane University; and Argelia Pérez Luviano, leader of the first transition town in Mexico, among others.
At various moments throughout, after hearing from speakers, participants will be asked to break out into groups to share personal reflections and stories, and engage in visioning exercises to build a list of strategies for community resilience in real time.
The final product of this two-day workshop will be made public and will be presented to US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent and Mexico’s Environment Secretary Juan Elvira Quesada at the CEC Council Session that follows the workshop on July 11 in New Orleans.
The Council Session on July 11 is free and open to the public. Watch the Council Session live from 1:45 p.m. EST via webcast at www.cec.org/webcast and join the discussion through our liveblog. Send in your questions and comments today via Twitter (@CEC web) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/CECconnect). Join the discussion on Twitter, using the hashtags #communities and #CEC12.
About the CEC
The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) was established in 1994 by the governments of Canada, Mexico and the United States through the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, a parallel environmental agreement to NAFTA. As of 2020, the CEC is recognized and maintained by the Environmental Cooperation Agreement, in parallel with the new Free Trade Agreement of North America. The CEC brings together a wide range of stakeholders, including the general public, Indigenous people, youth, nongovernmental organizations, academia, and the business sector, to seek solutions to protect North America’s shared environment while supporting sustainable development for the benefit of present and future generations
The CEC is governed and funded equally by the Government of Canada through Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Government of the United States of Mexico through the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, and the Government of the United States of America through the Environmental Protection Agency.