Rising temperatures, more extreme storms, and shifts in the growing season are just some of the symptoms of climate change that communities across the US already experience. As the threat of climate change grows, so does the need for a robust and inclusive workforce trained in climate mitigation and adaptation. Business as usual will not get us there.
This is where the newly announced American Climate Corps (ACC), a multiagency job training initiative in the growing fields of clean energy, conservation, and climate resilience, comes into play. Reminiscent of the past Civilian Conservation Corps and the current AmeriCorps programs, this still-developing initiative has a major opportunity to spur local workforce partnerships, build diverse talent pipelines and, crucially, tackle climate change.
Although climate change is often considered a polarizing issue, polling reveals that the majority of Americans (about 8 in 10) support establishing a program similar to the Civilian Conservation Corps. Support remains strong no matter how you slice the data by education, age, political party, race, or ethnicity. The fact is, Americans want to create good, climate-friendly jobs. But while communities across the country receive an influx of federal money for infrastructure projects, they lack the trained workforce needed to implement them.
Public sector work has long been a pathway to the middle class for marginalized workers in the United States. These jobs are less likely to discriminate in the hiring process and are more likely to provide good benefits, retirement options, stable employment, and union representation. While overall US job growth begins to cool, government and construction hiring trends upward. The design and implementation of the ACC matters greatly if it is to create good, sustainable jobs for a diverse workforce, whether in the public or private sector.
The ACC should be equitable and pay fair wages
The ACC should build on lessons learned from the implementation of the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933. While the Civilian Conservation Corps included legislative language that forbid discrimination based on race, color, or creed, the program’s camps were racially segregated except for supervisors and foremen, who were largely white corpsmen. Women were excluded altogether. And even though Black Americans faced disproportionately worse economic hardships throughout the Great Depression, their enrollment in the Civilian Conservation Corps was capped at 10 percent and made upward mobility all but impossible. Similar current initiatives, such as AmeriCorps, pay poverty-level wages, effectively making the program inaccessible to young people who lack external support and ineffective as a pathway to economic stability.
The White House states that the ACC will “focus on equity and environmental justice – prioritizing communities traditionally left behind… [and] projects that help meet the Administration’s Justice40 goal.” This is a laudable yet lofty goal given that women, Black, and Latinx workers are currently underrepresented across the clean energy workforce. Paid, skills-based training opportunities, such as the ACC, can help reverse this trend so long as there is adequate local partnership to support trainees and widespread awareness of the opportunity.
Despite women’s underrepresentation in the energy workforce, they made up more than half of the net energy jobs added in 2022. The US Department of Labor’s Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations grant aims to expand pathways for women to enter male-dominated industries like construction for decades. Grantee organizations provide technical assistance to develop preapprenticeship or nontraditional skills training programs to prepare women for careers in the industry; provide ongoing orientation for employers, unions, and workers to create a successful environment for women to succeed in these careers; and set up support groups, facilitate networks, or provide support services for women to improve their retention. Programs and practices like these can help the ACC to fulfill its inclusivity goals. While over 42,000 sign-ups since its recruitment portal launch is an impressive feat, it won’t mean much if retention and completion rates are low or disproportionately spread between demographic groups.
ACC’s success depends on cross-sector partnerships
The White House proclaimed that a goal of the ACC is to create “pathways to high-quality, good-paying clean energy and climate resilience jobs in the public and private sectors.” President Biden also called on labor unions, nonprofits, private sector employers, philanthropy, and Tribal, state, and local governments to collaborate on expanding skills-based training. Partnerships between these organizations are critical for ACC participants to connect with good careers at the end of their service.
Organizations with unionized workforces in 2022 were 50 percent more likely to have a policy to recruit women, twice as likely to have a policy to recruit people of color, and 2.5 times more likely to have a policy to recruit LGBTQ+ workers. Demand-side efforts that set and enforce diversity standards for contractors, such as project participation goals for women and people of color, can push non-union employers in this direction. This means adequately staffing government bodies such as the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs and providing opportunities for contractors to learn.
Supply-side interventions are equally important since jobs in the clean energy and climate resilience sectors can only be as diverse as there is awareness among potential trainees and workers. Diverse workforce pathways begin with recruitment that gets people through the door and continue with supports like transportation and child care that enable them to stay. The federal government can—and must—increase funding for these interventions so that women and people of color leaving the ACC have clear and accessible next steps in their careers.
Conclusion
The American Climate Corps is a monumental step forward in recognizing the demands of young Americans for strong climate action and access to good jobs. To realize its vision, ACC jobs should be equitable, pay fair wages, and consist of strong cross-sector partnerships. Program success ultimately depends on active participation from students, workforce organizations, labor unions, training providers, workers, and employers.