The Bay Area Youth Climate Summit (BAYCS)
Mission:
The Bay Area Youth Climate Summit (BAYCS) is a by youth, for youth collective, entirely run by high school organizers. BAYCS serves as a launchpad for youth climate action, committed to bringing together teens from across the San Francisco Bay Area to connect over interactive environmental justice education, civil advocacy, and community-driven climate resilience. We believe that to effectively restore relationships of reciprocity with land, labor, and culture youth imaginations must be centered in the movement for a brighter future. This praxis guides our cultural strategy, as we unite youth with the intention of dismantling toxic isolating activism silos, and instead uplifting one another in community. Since our inception in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic’s rampant disconnection, we’ve united thousands of youth and hundreds of high schools through annual summits and 95+ workshops rooted in frameworks of horizontal mentorship, just transition, self-governance, and grassroots ecological justice. With these lenses, our youth council members have organized everything from protests to climate joy festivals to climate psychology skillshares to public policy campaigns.Website
