Young people want to work on climate. This group is helping

CBC

27-03-2025

Also: See how to recycle an office building into apartments
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Young people want to work on climate. This group is helping
Image | Ann Ralls at the BC Insulators training centre
Caption: Ann Ralls went through three months of training as a mechanical insulator. The training was set up by the Youth Climate Corps B.C., a program that offers young people paid training in a variety of jobs that help with climate change. (Rachel Sanders/CBC)
Ann Ralls had never considered working in the construction industry. But after three months of paid training — coordinated by a non-profit called Youth Climate Corps B.C. — she loves it.
"It's a lot of work but it's fun. It's like doing arts and crafts every day," she told CBC Radio's climate solutions show What On Earth.
Ralls, 23, trained as a mechanical insulator, a trade focused on insulating equipment such as pipes and ducts using a variety of materials like fibreglass, PVC and metal. The work can improve the energy efficiency of buildings and lower their carbon footprints.
The climate benefits are what attracted her to the work.
"I was really just trying to find a job in the climate industry," she said.
Ralls said, in recent years, wildfires, drought, extreme heat and supercharged storms have threatened the people and places she loves.
"It's kind of scary, especially when people you know have farms and they are at risk," she said. "I feel like it's so important to find how you can make a difference."
Despite the fact that she'd "never really touched a power tool before," Ralls took to mechanical insulating quickly. She said the work is interesting and well-paid, and it gives her a sense of satisfaction to be contributing to climate solutions.
Ashley Duncan, the president of union Local 118 with the B.C. Insulators, which partnered with Youth Climate Corps B.C. on the training program, said the climate link seems to attract young people who are considering the trades as a career.
"When we've done trade fairs and things like that, that piece brings a lot more people over to us than a lot of the other stuff we discuss," she said.
Duncan said attracting more climate-motivated young people to this work could help solve the shortage of trades workers in Canada.
"When I first started out [in this trade], I didn't see a lot of women. I didn't see a lot of diversity," she said. "So being able to bring people in now, especially under climate literacy, I think it's so important."
Media Audio | What On Earth : Move over Peace Corps, meet Climate Corps. Enlist now!
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Ben Simoni, executive director of Youth Climate Corps B.C. (YCCBC), said the organization has heard from young people that they're concerned about the future and want to work on climate change in their communities.
"The younger generation really wants to be working in areas that align with their values," he said.
Simoni said the program, which started in Nelson, B.C., in 2020, has to date hired approximately 100 young people who have completed around 10,000 paid days of climate action through the program. The four-to-six month training sessions are open to people aged 17 to 30.
Trainees have worked in communities around B.C., from the Interior to the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, on a variety of climate related projects, including wildfire mitigation, ecological restoration, and home retrofitting.
"We like to connect it to the needs of the community and also the job opportunities that are in the community so that … people are being set up for a really solid career," said Simoni.
The program secures funding for wages by partnering with local governments and employers as well as by applying for grants. Last year, the B.C. government announced $3 million for the program over three years.
Simoni said the group would like to expand the program to other provinces and offer longer training sessions to give young people hands-on experience in a wider variety of climate-related jobs.
"I'm really excited to see where this goes because I do truly believe it is a program to meet the moment," he said.
With youth unemployment high across Canada, Simoni said young people are facing economic uncertainty as well as climate uncertainty.
"When we have wealth concentration and when we have the delegitimization of governments, that's when we see far right nationalism and that's where we see wealth inequality expand more and more," he said.
"What I think is a big potential of Youth Climate Corps is giving people other stories of how we can be as a nation, how we can be as communities."
As for Ralls, she's been hired on with the company she trained with and intends to continue with the work while she applies to graduate schools.
She's not the only one continuing on as a mechanical insulator. The other six trainees in her cohort have also been hired on to work as mechanical insulators.
Some, said Ralls, intend to pursue Red Seal certification and continue with the job long term.
"Thanks to YCCBC some people are finding a career in trades," she said.
—
Check out our podcast and radio show. In our newest episode: Kids and veggies don't always go hand in hand, but this after-school workshop is introducing plant-based cooking to children as a climate solution. It's called EcoCooks. Producer Nick Logan stopped by a session to meet the kids aged nine to 12 who are learning to make, and appreciate, tasty, vegetable-forward food that also cuts emissions. Then, we learn about other community efforts across Canada to put more veggies in the spotlight and onto plates.
Media Audio | What On Earth : Tasty, climate-friendly food that kids will make (and eat)
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What On Earth drops new podcast episodes every Wednesday and Saturday. You can find them on your favourite podcast app or on demand at CBC Listen. The radio show airs Sundays at 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m. in Newfoundland and Labrador.
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Last week, we wrote about a student science project to test eco-friendly laundry water for watering garden plants.
Francis Hill wrote: "I'm a member of the Native Plant Stewardship Group (part of Transition Salt Spring) and we're tackling invasive English ivy and discussing ways to dispose of it. Someone mentioned it contains the same chemical, saponin, found in the soap nuts, and I found recipes for making laundry soap from ivy leaves online. It would be wonderful if we could find a practical use for this invasive species."
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The Big Picture: Who wins and who loses with the carbon tax cut?
Mark Carney's first move after being sworn in as prime minister was to end the federal consumer carbon tax and the rebate that came with it to offset the cost. The fuel charge was intended as an incentive for people to invest in clean technology such as EVs and heat pumps, and it applied in provinces without their own carbon pricing. It will be removed from consumer gasoline, diesel natural gas and oil bills on April 1. The April 15 carbon rebates will be the last one Canadians receive.
But who will benefit from this?
The chart above, created by CBC data journalist Robson Fletcher in 2023, shows the trends.
For each income range, you can see what share of households gained or lost money under the carbon tax and rebate system, depending on their consumption habits — or specifically, how much they spent on gasoline, natural gas and other products covered by the tax. (The further to the right side, the more money gained. The further to the left side, the more money lost.) Back then, the carbon tax was $65 per tonne and it's now $80 per tonne, so the actual dollar amounts would be higher in 2025, but the trend would be the same.
The chart shows lower-income Canadians largely benefited from the carbon tax and rebate. For example, 94 per cent of households with incomes below $50,000 received rebates greater than the carbon tax they paid. When the carbon tax and rebate are gone, higher-income Canadians will benefit the most, while many lower-income Canadians will lose money.
— Emily Chung
How do you recycle an office building into apartments? Check out this reno.
In less than a year, someone will be living in what used to be the finance department of a local insurance company. Someone else will be taking a shower where lawyers held meetings or cooking where human resources staff signed paycheques.
Work is underway to turn 195 Dufferin Avenue in London, Ont., an eight-storey building that once housed insurance companies and law offices, into apartment units. It's the first project that's using incentive money from the city to convert empty or under-used offices into much-needed housing.
"We're doing something that is better for the community and better for London," said Richard Sifton, CEO of Sifton Properties, which is heading up the conversion.
Sifton leases the building, which sits on land owned by St. Paul's Cathedral and the Anglican Diocese of Huron. Homes Unlimited, London's largest provider of non-profit housing, will eventually run the apartment building.
"It just seemed to be the right project at the right time," Sifton said, standing on the ground floor of the building, which will eventually house a laundry room, an office, and community rooms. "Those of us that have done well need to ensure that we are there for the communities that we work in and help people out as best we can, wherever we can."
Converting an office into residential units comes with unique challenges. Commercial buildings tend to have only one set of washrooms — and the required plumbing — per floor. "Obviously, you have to have washrooms and a kitchen in every unit, so we have to relocate all of that plumbing and the mechanical systems because each unit has to have its own heating and cooling and fresh air," Sifton said.
"It's not as simple as just putting up some walls and hoping that everything works."
Media Audio | London Morning : Converting a downtown office building into affordable housing units
Caption: One of London's oldest builders is converting a downtown office building into affordable housing units. CBC reporter Kate Dubinski got a tour of the work in progress by Sifton Properties CEO Richard Sifton.
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Crews have used radar equipment to see what they're cutting into before drilling holes into each floor to feed mechanical and electrical systems through, as well as plumbing. Sifton said starting from scratch would have been simpler, but there are many advantages to converting an existing building.
"We have the good bones of the structure, so we're able to make this project happen a lot faster." Normally, he said, an apartment building would take two and a half years to construct. In this case, construction began last October, and he expects people to be able to move in by the end of this year or early 2026.
The units tend to be narrower than ones that would have been created in a new build, Sifton said, but many will have very large windows and views of downtown. "Some of the bedrooms don't have windows, per se, but we do have lighting cells so they get natural light coming into the bedroom, which will make it much more appealing for the resident. It just has to be a little bit different in order for the layout to work."
All of the windows are being replaced to be more energy-efficient, as are heating and cooling systems. Sifton said the biggest surprises have come from opening up walls, floors, and ceilings and finding unexpected challenges, such as asbestos piping wrap.
"The renovators of the world are used to this, but we're not," he said.
"Sometimes, when things are built, the plans show you how it's supposed to be built, but that doesn't necessarily how it actually was built, so that takes some more time and effort."
Sifton is also working with other major London developers Tricar, Auburn and Drewlo, to convert a former long-term care home into 40 supportive housing units, where people can move after getting the stability they need in one of the city's homeless hubs.
"That's people coming together and doing something with a common cause," Sifton said. "We're normally competitors, but not in this process. We're all contributing as much as we can, thinking that we want to contribute to the community and try to fill in where we can make things better."
— Kate Dubinski
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Editors: Emily Chung and Hannah Hoag | Logo design: Sködt McNalty