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- Bay Area Youth Climate Summit is youth-run, led entirely by high school students, empowering peers to lead climate education, advocacy, and community action.
- Merrian Borgeson keynote plus interactive workshops connect youth to climate solutions, policy learning, and mental health support like addressing eco-anxiety.
- Free and accessible, the summit centers frontline communities, fosters collective resilience, and has mobilized over 10,000 youth through events and workshops.
Youth-led climate advocacy organization, Bay Area Youth Climate Summit, invites 250+ youth from across the Bay Area for a day of climate learning, movement-building, and community-driven climate resilience
Brower Center, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA – The Bay Area Youth Climate (BAYCS) presents its seventh annual climate summit, joining forces with youth, educators, artists, and organizers to host a 250-person event. It has one mission: bring youth voices to the front of the climate space.
The 2026 Youth Climate Summit connects youth with real means of taking action in their communities. This summit is differentiated by its fully high school student team, making the learning at the summit authentic to the current youth experience with climate change.
By allowing youth to explore climate solutions and reimagine the climate crisis, we shift the traditional narrative — where many youth feel powerless — and empower youth to take change. This year’s theme is Progress Without Perfection.
“It represents how every change to the climate movement is important, such as the shift toward holding corporations instead of individuals accountable and using California as a model for climate action,” states co-chair Natalie Dias. “We chose workshops and tables that embodied this model of growth, focusing on youth groups that are the catalysts for change. Now more than ever, the climate movement needs growth, which can only be achieved if we keep adapting.”
The summit features a keynote speech from Merrian Borgeson, Policy Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a lunch activity fair with 20+ local organizations tabling, and 13 interactive workshops led by local climate experts on climate policy, climate mental health, urban planning, agriculture, and more. Sessions include “Addressing Eco-Anxiety” led by the Stanford CIRCLE Youth Mental Health Leadership Group and “Environmental Zine Workshop: Artivism for Change” with the New Urbanism Initiative.
As California continues to experience the realities of a changing climate, young people must come to terms with a future shaped by environmental uncertainty. This year alone, more than 317,000 acres have burned across California, according to CAL FIRE.
For many young people, climate change is no longer a distant threat—it is something that shapes the places they live, the futures they imagine, and the anxiety they carry. As climate anxiety continues to rise among youth—a product of inaction and the inaccessibility of the climate movement to young people—the Bay Area Youth Climate Summit, made for youth by youth, carves out a space for teens in climate solutions, community-building, and collective action.
BAYCS counters the doom and distress that can dominate climate discourse, instead inviting young people to explore climate optimism and join a growing movement for systemic change and collective action. “It’s easy to feel small when you’re reading about a crisis as big as climate change. But when you walk into a room filled with hundreds of young people who care just as deeply as you do, that feeling changes.
The BAYCS summit tried to turn climate anxiety from something we carry alone into something we can confront together.” BAYCS Co-Chair Caroline Lane says.
The event is open to youth of all ages and is entirely free, ensuring accessibility across the Bay Area, especially in frontline communities disproportionately affected by climate change and without environmental education.
Amidst the relentless barrage of climate negativity, the Bay Area Youth Climate Summit pioneers a fresh narrative of hope, resilience, and action. Led entirely by high school students, BAYCS provides a space for youth to engage in climate action and peer-to-peer education, striving to alleviate climate anxiety by empowering action instead.
“The climate movement can at times be incredibly difficult to navigate and understand. Through BAYCS I am given a space where I learn new things, find myself inspired, and most importantly have built community. My peers and fellow members show me the power behind youth action, resilience, and growth.
BAYCS acts as a constant reminder that change can be made at every level and that climate advocacy doesn’t have to come from a place of fear,” says BAYCS Co-Chair Bella Eilersen. BAYCS serves a community that is anchored in all ways—including by name—to the San Francisco Bay.
Despite the plurality of the Bay, communities that are often most affected by environmental disregard are also the ones that don’t receive environmental education. In an area where so many youth do not receive adequate climate education, BAYCS lets youth take it into their own hands. In the years since its founding in 2020, BAYCS has mobilized over 10,000 youth from 230 local high schools through seven annual summits, three festivals, dozens of protests, and 100+ monthly workshops in collaboration with local climate advocates, collectives, and nonprofits, giving Bay Area youth a united platform to collaborate, network, and turn action into action.
“It’s impossible to not be passionate about climate change once you understand the impact of the issue. So the first step to climate action is awareness and education, which is exactly what we as youth get to bring to other youth in our community through our work at BAYCS,” says BAYCS team member Sasha Hahn.
For more information about the summit and a full list of participating tables, visit the Bay Area Youth Climate Summit’s website.
Some of the 2026 BAYCS Sessions and Workshops:
1. Methane: The Climate Energy Break, Shannon Cairns, Waste Warriors
2. Environmental Zine Workshop: Artivism for Change, Justin Chen, New Urbanism Initiative
3. Holding Hope: Navigating Eco-Anxiety Together, Allison Oh, CIRCLE Youth Climate Mental Health Leadership Group at Stanford Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
4. Making Your Voice Heard: Writing Your Elected Officials for Climate Action, Maryam Khan, Letters for Humanity
5. Mapping the Path to Climate Sustainability with En-Roads, Anne D’Arcy, Citizens Climate Lobby, Education Team
6. From Local Problems to Policy, Ella Lee-Donley, San Mateo Youth Commission
We will be having a total of 13 workshops in total. These are the ones we are able to provide details on at the moment. UCSF Pediatrics, 350 Bay Area, Fossil Free California, and MORE will also be hosting workshops.
About Bay Area Youth Climate Summit (BAYCS):
The Bay Area Youth Climate Summit (BAYCS) is a youth-run, self-governed collective working at the intersection of environmental education and climate justice. BAYCS aims to empower young people to become leaders in the fight against climate change through education, advocacy, and community engagement. www.baycs.org bayareaycs@gmail.com
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