Biden-⁠Harris Administration Launches American Climate Corps to Train Young People

President Joe Biden’s administration announced Wednesday’s first-ever American Climate Corps (ACC) launch.

According to a White House press release, the ACC will prepare American youth for clean energy and climate resilience jobs and aims to “put more than 20,000 young people on career pathways in the growing fields of clean energy, conservation and climate resilience.”

“The American Climate Corps, just in its first year of recruitment, will put to work a new diverse generation of more than 20,000 Americans doing the important task of conserving and restoring our lands and waters, bolstering community resilience, deploying clean energy – in many cases, distributed and community based – implementing energy efficiency technologies that will cut consumer costs for the American people, and advancing environmental justice so long overdue in so many places,” White House national climate adviser Ali Zaidi told reporters ahead of the public announcement.

The American Climate Corps is a new iteration of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which gave millions of young men employment on environmental schemes during the Great Depression. Over the course of nine years, program participants planted over three billion trees and created trails and shelters in more than 800 parks nationwide.

The announcement comes as New York City hosts the 15th edition of Climate Week 2023, focusing on fulfilling climate goals and the need to raise the commitments made by companies, governments and organizations.

Five states nationwide, including California, Colorado, Maine, Michigan and Washington, have already launched flourishing climate corps programs. This week, five new states —Arizona, Utah, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Maryland—are moving forward with state-based climate corps funded through public-private partnerships.

According to NASA, while the Earth’s climate has changed throughout its history, the current warming is happening at a rate not seen in the past 10,000 years and is happening due to human activities since the mid-1800s. The planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 2 degrees Fahrenheit, primarily driven by increased carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere and other human activities. The ocean has absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 100 meters of the ocean showing warming of 0.67 degrees Fahrenheit.

In 2021, Biden signed the Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, laying out several steps his administration would be undertaking to tackle the global crisis.

Those interested in the new initiative can find out more at whitehouse.gov/climatecorps.