California Climate & Energy Collaborative

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Priority Area: Clean Energy and Building Decarbonization
Barrier: Workforce

Challenge/Local/State

Description

Local Solution
(Type of Activity: Community Program Implementation )

Build Youth Pipelines Into Clean Energy Careers. Local governments and partners can engage youth and families through education, K–12 integration, aspirational marketing, and hands-on training programs that connect young people to retrofit, solar, and resilience projects. Prioritizing mentorship and high-quality pathways improves retention and long-term career outcomes.

Existing Examples of Progress: 1. Conservation Corps: Used as a workforce entry point for disadvantaged youth, envisioned as a way to bridge outdoor resilience (landscaping, stormwater, soil health) and indoor retrofits (energy efficiency, solar, electrification). 2. Climate Beautiful grant: Provides a real-world example of training local youth and residents in solar installation, while directly delivering no-cost upgrades to households. It’s framed as a promising but fragile model, because it relies on state grant cycles. 3. Climate and Workforce Youth Teams out of Orange County is a youth team created by a local climate group that engages students in climate and workforce issues. They emphasize the importance of parent education so families support youth participation in green careers. 4. Marketing campaigns to show green jobs as “cool” and aspirational, similar to campaigns like “coders” or “firefighters.”
Region: Los Angeles, Statewide

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