Supporting Canadian municipalities in achieving their GHG reduction goals

With influence over roughly 50 percent of the nation’s GHG emissions, local governments have a major part to play in helping Canada reach net-zero by 2050. To meet our climate goals, we need to increase ambition and explore new and innovative GHG reduction opportunities and transition to a resilient, low-carbon future. By embracing low-carbon solutions, communities can produce less carbon pollution, improve resident health and strengthen the local economy.

The Municipal Net-Zero Action Research Partnership (N-ZAP) aims to study and create improved methods for how local governments monitor, measure and reduce local GHG emissions. These evaluation methods will make it easier for municipalities to identify, develop and assess decarbonization initiatives, with the goal of aligning local climate work with national commitments.

Explore the N-ZAP database

The findings contained in the new database and report by N-ZAP are based on survey data collected from 256 Canadian municipalities across 10 provinces, collectively representing approximately 69.5 percent of the Canadian population. The participating municipalities disclosed crucial information relating to local climate action planning and implementation, GHG inventories, policy interventions and stakeholder engagement initiatives.

Overall, the survey findings demonstrate that local governments across the country are engaging in meaningful and impactful action to mitigate climate change. At the same time, this report acknowledges that improvements are needed to accelerate interventions, establish more robust targets, and enhance the efficiency of local efforts that support national action on climate change. Explore the database.

A report titled The State of Climate Action in Canadian Municipalities provides a detailed summary of the survey data and how communities can use it to inform their decision-making. Download the report.

Participate in the program

Interested in getting involved? N-ZAP is recruiting 250 Canadian municipalities to participate as pilot cities or case study subjects. By participating in N-ZAP, your municipality will: 

• Have the opportunity to contribute to the climate conversation at a national level and advance local GHG reduction efforts
• Showcase the work and efforts of its climate policy in a publicly accessible database 
• Gain access to cutting-edge resources on climate budgeting, measurement and collaborative governance produced by the program as they become available

You can register your municipality's interest in becoming a pilot city here.

‍N-ZAP is a research partnership funded, in part, by the Government of Canada through the Climate Action and Awareness Fund (CAAF) and jointly led by the University of Waterloo, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ (FCM) Green Municipal Fund (GMF) and ICLEI Canada, working with 11 other academic institutions, and 8 national organizations and 13 municipal partners.

This project was undertaken with the financial support of the Government of Canada.