Long Beach took the first step toward creating a Youth Climate Corps program after the City Council forwarded a request to its Climate Action and Environmental Committee Tuesday night to begin public outreach on how to use $5 million in state funding it secured earlier this year.
Mayor Robert Garcia proposed the program after the Big City Mayor’s Coalition, a group of mayors from California’s 13 biggest cities, successfully lobbied Gov. Gavin Newsom to include funding for climate change in the 2021 state budget.
Newsom approved $150 million to support a youth workforce jobs program in the state, and Long Beach was awarded $6.3 million. Garcia said that $5 million would go toward creating the youth program, while the remaining $1.3 million would go to administrative costs and shoring up existing workforce development programs in the city.
“This is a significant amount of dollars,” Garcia said. “$5 million to start for a program like this is a great start.”
The program could create local jobs for youth focused on climate change and adaptation and create career paths to public service and other climate-focused industitires. Garcia added that the program could be aligned with the federal civilian climate corps that is under consideration by the Biden Administration but has yet to advance out of Congress.
The federal program, which is in line for tens of billions of dollars in funding if Congress can approve a massive spending bill aimed at addressing the climate crisis, could put people to work in short-term jobs focused on renewable technology and climate change resilience. It’s inspired by the Civilian Conservation Corps, a depression-era program started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that put millions of Americans to work on the country’s infrastructure.
Aligning the city program with the potential federal program could put the city in a position to get additional federal funding down the road, something advocates asked the council to consider while forming the Youth Climate Corps.
Kenny Allen, a member of the Sunrise Movement Long Beach, a chapter of a youth organization focused on stopping climate change, said that the jobs provided through the program should pay a living wage with benefits and pave a path toward meaningful career opportunities.
Allen added that the communities most impacted by climate change should benefit most from the jobs created.
“Our generation is ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work building a world beyond fossil fuels, a world that centers care and community,” Allen said.
It’s still unclear what kind of limitations may be placed on the funding, and what they can ultimately be used for but the details of what the program will look like are expected to be discussed at the Climate Action and Environmental Committee before returning to the City Council for approval.
The committee last met in August and currently has no meeting scheduled for the rest of the year.