Evaluating Deep Decarbonisation Strategies at a local scale: GHG

Emissions Measurement, Monitoring, and Reporting

Through climate action initiatives, municipalities have great potential to make a significant contribution to reducing
global greenhouse gas emissions, though the target of net-zero by the year 2050 demands the existence of a
uniform and comparable standard for evaluating these action plans. A thorough study of the current and historical
state of measurement, target setting, monitoring, and reporting in the local climate action measures of
municipalities in Canada have structured the creation
of an evaluation framework to streamline and
standardize the process.

The framework breaks down a climate action plan

into four broad elements, one following the other:
development of a GHG emissions inventory
(Measurement), stating interim and final emission
reduction goals (target setting), plan evaluation and
revision (Monitoring), and sharing the inventory
information and delays of action with external
audiences (Reporting).

Evaluation Framework 1.1: Measuring

Emissions
The measurement of GHG emissions, or an emissions inventory, is one of the primary steps in creating a climate
action plan. Once established, GHG emissions inventories enable municipalities to benchmark their actions and
opportunities against an emission baseline. Consistent inventory generation and management will help them
regularly evaluate progress, assess the potential of strategies, and streamline their respective ongoing strategic
management processes.

Two key requirements for a holistic GHG emissions inventory are:

● Accurate, recent activity data representing both production and consumption-based emissions.

● Standardized method or approach to calculating the emissions.

However, as of 2023, both of these requirements are not met across municipalities. This leaves the system open to
the risk of uncertainty, inaccuracy, inconsistency, and incompatibility of GHG emissions measurement between
municipalities.

How are Canadian Municipalities measuring GHG emissions now?

As of 2023, 533 Canadian municipalities participate in the Partners for Climate Protection program. The PCP
program includes a framework for carrying out city-based emissions inventories derived from the more widely used
framework: the GHG Protocol for Cities (GPC) that helps local city governments measure and track their emissions.
Additionally, some municipalities may choose to use an option that has been customized to their specific contexts.
However, in the absence of accurate data on these variations, the comparability of the GHG emissions inventories in
Canadian municipalities remains low.

What factors does a comprehensive measurement evaluation framework consider?

Setting emissions reduction targets

In 2021 the Canadian Federal government committed to a target of 40-45% emissions reductions by 2030 and net-
zero emissions by 2050. While these national targets provide direction for municipalities, local context-sensitive
emissions reduction targets are highly efficient catalysts for deep decarbonization. Importantly, these municipality-
specific emissions reduction targets are key determinants of the success potential of federal emissions reduction
targets in Canada. Under the proposed evaluation framework, municipality targets can be assessed in terms of
responses to two questions:

● What are the interim and final targets of each municipality?

● What are the target years set by the municipality for their final and interim targets?

Evaluation Framework 1.2 : Monitoring Local Climate Action Plans

In order to effectively measure progress and identify areas that need improvement, we need municipalities to
follow a consistent monitoring and evaluation framework for all their local climate action plans, supplemented by
relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). In the presence of such a framework, municipalities can regularly adjust
or renew their plans based on feedback from their on-ground execution. Monitoring and evaluation procedures
that explain in detail how data are collected and managed, analyzed, and reported can significantly increase the
comparability of progress in meeting targets across municipalities. Presently, in Canada, there is an apparent lack of
a widespread baseline understanding of the appropriate monitoring practices for local climate action plans.

What factors does a comprehensive monitoring evaluation framework consider?

Evaluation Framework 1.3 : Reporting Progress

Comprehensive and detailed reporting mechanisms act as key indicators of transparency and accountability to
external stakeholders,they can allow external stakeholders to gauge a city’s climate mitigation activities and
progress. Additionally, transparent and periodic evaluations help governments make internal decision-making more
efficient, and enable timely revisions to the plans based on feedback from the ground. However, in reporting – as in
other segments discussed earlier – availability of accurate and comparable data appears to be the major bottleneck.
The existing system of reporting from municipalities is riddled with pain points that range from time gaps between
calculating and disclosing emissions, use of diverse methodologies to develop measurements, and related concerns
to resistance towards verifying data.

In addition to its utility in streamlining progress evaluation, well-established reporting systems also form a
necessary component of the municipalities’ responsibility to disclose information to external audiences, as local
governments are accountable to the public and the federal governments. In 2023, we currently have data on the
reporting practices followed in the larger cities like Toronto and Vancouver, but a large number of the municipalities
have little consistency in the reporting frameworks being used.

What factors does a comprehensive reporting evaluation framework consider?

Significant Emission Reductions Themes from around Canada.

The recent study by Colin Neveroff (2022) examined the reports from municipalities in Canada who participated in
the PCP program and assessed their climate mitigation plans under the framework measured above. The study
found that the municipalities with the most corporate and community emissions reduction were the larger ones (in
terms of population) in the sample, and most of them were concentrated in Ontario. This can be explained by the
fact that Ontario’s province-wide coal phase-out plan has contributed significantly to emissions reductions.
Additionally, most of the municipalities in the province have been actively engaging in inventory monitoring and
setting reduction targets for the last 10 years or more, indicating better progress.

The results also offer clear insights into what works in climate action planning and implementation, and what does
not. A side-by-side study of information from the community and corporate emissions reductions samples
demonstrates several parallel trends, including a clear association between successful emissions reductions and
higher stakeholder involvement, inclusion of project-based results in the monitoring systems, presence of council
members and community-wide entities in the action process, and stronger and more diverse channels for
disseminating data on the progress of action plans to external actors and the public. Importantly, however, given
that even the most successful of municipalities still haven’t put in place standardized reporting and monitoring
frameworks, evaluating progress still remains a pain point in this area.

Notable practices among the high performing municipalities:

Conclusion

Canadians have been paying attention to reducing emissions at a local level for a while now, and this shows in the
considerable size of municipalities with local emissions reduction targets and an implementable local climate action
plan. However, in order to align these targets and actions with quantifiable and comparable results, and further
facilitate review and improvement, there needs to be a concrete evaluation framework and more consistent system
of practices that can be adopted by each municipality and adapted to fit each context. Thus, the qualitative multi-
case study undertaken by Neveroff offers a comprehensive understanding of the current state of GHG emission and
climate action measurement, monitoring, and reporting in Canadian municipalities
The results and insights mentioned on this page were derived from a thorough analysis of the data obtained from a
sample of over 200 municipalities across Canada. The study limited its focus to only those municipalities that are
participating in the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program. The findings may be unique to the Canadian
landscape - or, in general, the Global North - but the trends in practices adopted by some of the municipalities with
significant emissions reductions are worth emulating elsewhere. These insights contribute to the literature on
climate change, climate mitigation, local climate action, urban studies, and strategic management.

This content has been derived from:

Neveroff, C. (2023). Deep Decarbonization in Cities: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Measurement, Monitoring, and
Reporting. MES thesis, SEED, University of Waterloo, Canada. UWSpace.
https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/19285