Recognizing that today's environmental challenges are a global responsibility, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently unveiled its top six international priorities, aimed at promoting citizen engagement, improving public health and increasing environmental enforcement.

"While we have a long history of international collaboration on numerous global environmental issues, our bilateral and multilateral partnerships have taken on a renewed significance," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said in a mid-August memo to all of the agency's employees.

"It is our vision that by working with global partners we can advance our shared priorities, including adapting to climate change, ensuring national security, facilitating commerce, promoting sustainable development, protecting vulnerable populations and engaging diplomatically around the world," Jackson continued

Specifically, the six international priorities are the following.

1. Build strong environmental institutions and legal structures. "Countries need adequate governmental structures to enforce environmental protections," the memo says. The EPA will work with countries such as India and Brazil to "develop and support the promotion of good governance, improve judicial and legal structures, and design the regulatory systems necessary for effective environmental protection around the world."
2. Combat climate change by limiting pollutants. While the EPA has taken significant steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions nationwide, "pollution must be cut throughout the world." The agency will promote global strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants, such as methane from landfills and black carbon from cookstoves, as these pollutants are especially damaging vulnerable regions such as the Arctic.
3. Improve air quality. "Much of the pollution that contributes to climate change and increases cases of asthma and other respiratory diseases is concentrated in urban areas, which are growing in the U.S. and around the world," the memo claims. The EPA will work with organizations and both local and national governments to improve urban air quality in rapidly developing cities and communities.
4. Expand access to clean water. Water supplies in the U.S. and throughout the rest of the world are facing new threats, which is why the EPA will support global partners and regions in creating safe drinking water and efficient wastewater treatment systems. "The agency also will help in providing long-term, sustainable and high-quality drinking water and sanitation systems for overburdened and under-served communities such as those along the U.S.-Mexican border," according to the memo.
5. Reduce exposure to toxic chemicals. While the EPA works with Congress to strengthen national chemical laws, the agency also will work with global partners to provide protections for people and consistency for industry. "In working with partners like the United Nations Environment Programme, [the] EPA will strive to reduce or eliminate the impact of pesticides and other toxic chemicals," the memo says.
6. Clean up e-waste. When older electronics are replaced or become obsolete, many of them are discarded in developing countries where improper disposal can threaten local people and the environment. The EPA says it will work with international partners to address the issues of e-waste. In the immediate future, the agency will "focus on ways to improve the design, production, handling, reuse, recycling, exporting and disposal of electronics."

"Pollution doesn't stop at international borders, and neither can our environmental and health protections," Jackson said in a statement. "The local and national environmental issues of the past are now global challenges. This document sends a strong message to our partners in the international community that our challenges are shared challenges, and that we are eager to work together on solutions."

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Resources

Memorandum: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's International Priorities
by Lisa P. Jackson
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Aug. 17, 2010

EPA's International Priorities
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

...EPA's International Priorities / Agency to Work with Other Countries to Curb Pollution at Home and Abroad
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Aug. 17, 2010