Location

San Jose

Team Mentors

Daphne Zhu

Dashiell Leeds

Zekun Li (Staff)

Student Leaders

Mani Bekele

Calvin Sridhara

Kelly Liu

Anika K.

2026 Initiatives

Bring Your Own Cup Campaign:

• The San Jose Team was chosen for a $50,000 grant from the City of San José's Zero Waste Innovation program for an initiative to reduce the use of disposable cups throughout the city. We are reaching out to partner with dozens of businesses to uniformly allow (and, as much as possible, promote through discounts) the use of your own reusable cup at coffee and boba shops. We hope to launch a large public outreach campaign with the support of many local elected officials, and to start changing the norm in our city to bringing your own cup at your local coffee shop. We ultimately plan to link up this effort with a similar completed project in San Francisco and an ongoing one in San Mateo County with a map of participating businesses, and even a dedicated icon in Yelp or similar online sources for information on local shops and restaurants.

City Council Climate Candidate Forum:

• This May, the San Jose Team will host our first ever in-person candidate forum in partnership with the League of Women Voters of San Jose/Santa Clara, Acterra, and several other local environmental organizations. It will be for the District 9 City Council primary race in June, and will be focused on local climate policies. We also plan to host one or more additional forums in advance of the General Election in November.

City Council Policy Advocacy:

• We continue to advocate in support of climate action as a City Council Focus Area and the passage of an AC to Heat Pump reach code, and against cuts to our city's climate budget and any reckless expansion of AI data centers that could drive up electricity bills while increasing reliance on fossil fuels.

2025 Impact

Climate Smart Youth Video Competition:

• In the San José Team's largest project to date, we partnered with the City of San José's Climate Smart program, San José Clean Energy, The Tenacious Group, and CreaTV to host a climate-themed video contest for San José middle and high school students. 37 students participated, in addition to their families, a panel of judges, 3 City Councilmembers, and dozens of other community members. The initiative culminated in January, 2026, with a screening event at San José City Hall showcasing the winning video entries and celebrating all of the students involved. We plan to make this a growing annual project.

Santa Clara County Climate Roundtable:

• The San José Team worked with the rest of SVYCA in partnering with County Board of Supervisors President Otto Lee on our county's first annual Climate Roundtable in October, 2025. It brought together around 100 young people, climate advocates, and public officials to discuss the state of climate action in our county and brainstorm innovative policy solutions, particularly under current budgetary constraints.

Climate Smart Budget Advocacy:

• The San José Team organized a coalition of 7 local climate and environmental organizations to oppose steep funding cuts that had been proposed for our city's climate department in the 2025-26 city budget. We met with most City Council offices, gathered over 200 signatures for our petition on this item, and mobilized a dozen youth leaders to give public comment at City Hall. While the budget was still slashed, the cuts were smaller than initially proposed and largely balanced by reassigning funds from a related agency. We also helped to build a stonger local network of climate advocates and bring the vital importance of climate action to our city's young people to the full attention of the City Council.

Existing Single-Family Buildings Reach Code:

• The San José Team supported a city reach code to help accelerate the electrification of existing homes. The ordinance failed by one vote, but we hope to help bring it back to Council soon with more concerted advocacy from throughout the community.

Keeping Energy Facilities Out of Coyote Valley:

• The San José Team mobilized dozens of public comments in support of a successful campaign to keep a new electric terminal out of Coyote Valley and instead place it adjacent to the already-developed Metcalf substation.

2024 impact

Multifamily EV Charging Reach Code

1. Aided in successful advocacy efforts to pass a City Reach Code requiring EV charging access in most new apartment buildings

2. This protects residents from heavy markups on commercial charging stations & facilitates EV adoption

CISC Leadership Symposium 

3 San Jose Team Members spoke at a youth panel on climate literacy at a state conference with an audience of ~1,200 CA educators and school administrators. (Feb 22, 2024)

SJCE Anniversary Event

• Joined San Jose Clean Energy’s 5-year anniversary celebration, 300+ attendees

• Gave a short speech about the importance of climate action

• Received award from SJCE

Climate Smart Budget Advocacy

• 7 team members gave public comments in person at SJ City Hall

• Our coalition’s advocacy resulted in reduced funding cuts to San José’s Climate Smart program.

Library Workshops

We reached 30+ students with our climate literacy curriculum!

• Hosted an online high school workshop in collaboration with the Saratoga Library Teen Advisory Board

• Held an in-person K-8 interactive workshop at Alum Rock Library

Publications

• Published Op-eds and Letters to the Editor in local newspaper on climate policy priorities.

  • Simran Karkhanis's June, 2024 LTE on Climate Smart Funding

  • Daphne Zhu's January 2024 LTE on Multifamily EV Charging Reach Code

  • Mila Bekele's January 2024 San Jose Spotlight article on Multifamily EV Charging Reach Code

• November 2024 election City Council candidate questionnaire is up on SVYCA's website

• Write-in City Council Candidate Forum

Previous — 2023 Impact

1. San Jose City Council Carbon Neutrality Plan effectively brought deadline to be carbon neutral to 2030

2. Organized members to work with elected officials and city staff as well as to give public comment at City Council and other public meetings to:

• Support city staff recommending to City Council a Multifamily Housing EV Charging Reach Code to require access to basic EV charging for all newly constructed apartment units in the city

• Sunset the Distributed Energy Resources (DER) exemption to San Jose’s natural gas ban at multiple past City Council meetings, and continuing into the future

• Support the creation of the municipal utility SJ Power

• Help maintain funding for Viva Calle and Viva Parks, programs which are particularly important in leading the city toward a less car-dependent future

• Successfully blocked two proposals to cut critical funding to the Climate Smart San Jose program

• Urged Mayor Mahan to include climate and sustainability in his priority list of city policy areas

3. Delivered interactive presentations to almost 200 elementary and middle school students on the basic science of climate change and empowered them toward individual action, civic engagement, and advocacy into their future.

What we’re working on: