The White House on Wednesday launched an environmental careers training program that will serve 20,000 young Americans in its first year, according to a press release.
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“Today we are mobilizing the next generation of energy transition and environmental workers,” said US President Joe Biden on X, formerly Twitter.
This program, based on a presidential decree and called the American Climate Corps, aims to involve these young people in energy transition projects and the fight against climate change.
This could include preventing floods by restoring seaside wetlands, developing renewable energies, managing forests or working on energy efficiency, explains the American executive.
“All of these programs will include paid experiences that meet a certain number of common criteria and pave the way for high-quality professional opportunities in the public and private sectors,” said the White House, which did not provide further details.
The initiative was well received by some non-governmental organizations who had been calling for such a program for some time.
One of them, Evergreen, welcomed a “big step towards creating good jobs for young people in the growing clean energy sector”.
Another, Sunrise, said: “The path to a Green New Deal is becoming increasingly visible.”
The initiative is perhaps reminiscent, albeit on a much more modest scale, of the Civilian Conservation Corps.
This program, a pillar of the New Deal, former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s massive economic stimulus program in the 1930s, benefited several million young unemployed Americans.
For these young men, it was about participating in natural resource restoration and development projects in exchange for room and board and a fixed salary, some of which was paid to families.
The American Climate Corps, which was launched in a much more favorable economic and social context, does not convince all activists.
“A “climate corps” that focuses only on promoting renewable energy is not serving its purpose,” said Keanu Arpels-Josiah, organizer of the recent March to End Fossil Fuels, in a press release.
He is calling on Joe Biden, who doesn’t mind being compared to Roosevelt for his big investment plans, to instead use his regulatory powers to block new oil and gas projects.