President Biden announced a new workforce training and service program centered on climate change resilience and mitigation: the country’s very first Climate Corps.

The White House described it as a means to “put a new generation of Americans to work conserving our lands and waters, bolstering community resilience, advancing environmental justice, deploying clean energy, implementing energy efficient technologies and tackling climate change.”

This program is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a New Deal-era program implemented after the Great Depression with the goal of providing jobs, meals, shelter and living wages for millions of unemployed men.

Chip Fletcher, climate scientist and interim dean of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), spoke on the benefits of a national climate resiliency program.

“There are lots of public lands that are in need of conservation,” Fletcher said. “And Biden appears to be building a workforce to perform said conservation. This is exciting because it’s an opportunity for young people to learn about conservation and climate change, and to factor that into their thinking when it comes to picking a career for themselves or what to major in, in college.”

Although the Climate Corps is much smaller in scale than its predecessor, it is projected to mobilize over 20 thousand Americans in green jobs with a focus on equity and environmental justice.

In an interview with the New York Times, National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi said, “We’ll do all of this while creating pathways to high quality, good paying clean energy and climate resilience jobs in the public sector and in the private, all of which we are focused and committed to making sure will be high road jobs — jobs with good wages, good benefits and the right to organize.”

The Climate Corps includes a paid training program and unlike CCC, which was fraught with discrimination and segregation, the Climate Corps is designed to employ and aid disadvantaged communities disproportionately impacted by climate change. These paid positions will require no prior experience with a focus on not only creating jobs, but building career pathways.

The Biden administration has not commented on how much funding is necessary for this program; it will be a collective effort among sectors such as the Labor Interior, AmeriCorps and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

Biden has faced heavy criticism among climate activists during his presidency. He campaigned on principles of environmental justice and conservation, yet one of his first acts as president was approval for the large-scale drilling project in Alaska known as Willow. 

The Climate Corps is a necessary response to the unparalleled effects of the climate crisis seen in the last decade, including multi-billion-dollar natural disasters such as the Maui wildfires and Hurricane Idalia. 

“The potential benefits include providing a helping hand for communities that are implementing social equity, climate adaptation and greenhouse gas mitigation,” Fletcher said. “These jobs require public meetings and research, and most importantly, working with the land.”