China and the United States are to continue with joint efforts to protect the environment.

The US Environmental Protection Agency and China's Ministry of Environmental Protection are to maintain their collaboration on environmental challenges in the long term, Lisa Jackson, the US agency's administrator said yesterday at a seminar in Shanghai.

Jackson, on her first official visit to China, renewed a memorandum of understanding with her counterpart in China to continue to cooperate on the prevention and management of air pollution, water pollution, organic pollutants and other toxic materials, hazardous and solid waste, and the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental law.

Jackson said the two bodies have been at the forefront of environmental collaboration for 30 years through a wide range of activities involving increasing energy efficiency, reducing harmful emissions and greenhouse gases, limiting threats to public health, and creating a foundation for environmental sustainability.

She said Chinese authorities clearly understood that China could not develop sustainably without thinking of public health and controlling environmental pollution.

(Shanghai Daily October 14, 2010)