MCIP's Role in Mobilizing Municipal Climate Action

The goal of the program is to help municipalities tackle climate change and its effects by building capacity to better prepare for and adapt to the new realities of climate change, as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions. MCIP has developed and delivered several diverse programs through which municipalities can access climate action funding, related to both adapting to the projected impacts of climate change (adaptation) and lowering municipal and community emissions (mitigation).

From 2020 to 2022, MCIP engaged ACT - the Action on Climate Team (formerly the Adaptation to Climate Change Team) to conduct an analysis of the results – common themes, innovations and outcomes – of the performance of these eight funding programs over the past five years by reviewing both completion reports (self-assessment reporting questionnaires) and the plans, studies, reports and strategies produced by funding recipients.

The goal of this analysis is to explore the overall impact that MCIP programs have had on mobilizing climate action and catalysing climate innovation in Canada at the municipal scale. In addition, we contribute proposed updates to MCIP’s Performance Measurement Framework to support future evaluation of program effectiveness, and identify key opportunities and recommendations for future development.

This report presents the findings; in particular, results from seven key areas. The seven key areas guiding the evaluation of successful climate action in the eight MCIP programs are evaluated against ACT’s consideration of best practice. These are:

• Common climate adaptation and mitigation actions being used in municipalities across the country.
• Common indicators that are being used to track progress on climate action.
• Strategic co-benefits and alignments between climate action and other community priorities.
• Consideration of equity in actions and process.
• Use of nature-based solutions (NbS).
• Other best practices.