The news last month that U.S. President Joe Biden is launching an American Climate Corps is bringing new momentum to a similar effort in Canada, with one crucial difference—the British Columbia-based Climate Emergency Unit is calling for a national Youth Climate Corps where no young person who wants a good, green job will be turned away.
In the U.S., federal agencies will hire 20,000 youth in the first year of the program to “remove wildfire fuel in forests, install EV chargers in cities, retrofit thermostats in low-income homes and, it is hoped, move on to union jobs in the clean energy economy,” the Living on Earth radio show and Inside Climate News report. The Emergency Unit is looking for something a lot bigger: a two-year, government-funded placement “with training and good pay doing meaningful climate work” that would “transform our economy and climate” for the better.
So far, 93 youth have prepared mock application letters for federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and Youth Minister Marci Ien, declaring themselves ready to join the corps.
Seth Klein, the Climate Emergency Unit’s founder and team lead, said a youth climate corps emerges as “the most emotionally resonant argument” with the post-secondary audiences he meets with. “I think there are tens of thousands of young people across the country who get that it’s an emergency, who’ve heard the call, who are ready to serve, and they’re, like, ‘where’s my goddamn invitation?’” he told The Energy Mix. “If and when our government issued that invitation, they would enlist.”
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