Unlocking the Economic Power of Natural Climate Solutions
This report explores how Natural Climate Solutions can unlock major economic, climate, and community benefits across Canada. It highlights mitigation potential, Indigenous‑led opportunities, investment hotspots, and the policy and data innovations needed to scale NCS for resilient, nature‑positive growth.
Subject Tags
- Natural climate solutions
- Indigenous Peoples
- Carbon storage
- Agriculture
- Grassland
- Forest
- Wetlands
Overview
Canada has a major, still‑untapped opportunity to scale Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) as a driver of economic growth, emissions reduction, and community well‑being. The report argues that by protecting, managing, and restoring ecosystems—forests, wetlands, grasslands, and agricultural landscapes—Canada can unlock substantial climate mitigation potential (up to 78 Mt CO₂e annually) while generating strong economic returns, many of which are currently undervalued or unaccounted for.
NCS offer multiple advantages over non‑nature‑based approaches: they deliver large emissions reductions at comparatively low cost, provide co‑benefits such as cleaner water, flood protection, biodiversity gains, and support for rural and Indigenous communities, and can be implemented immediately at scale.
Despite this potential, investment remains limited due to data gaps, inconsistent accounting methods, challenges replicating pilot projects, and difficulty translating ecosystem benefits into compelling business cases. The report provides an eight‑step framework for building stronger NCS business cases—emphasizing value propositions, Indigenous partnerships, ecosystem service valuation, MRV needs, risk assessment, and appropriate funding models.
It also identifies investment‑ready hotspots across Canada, including the Southern Prairies, Southern Ontario, and British Columbia, where multiple landscape types, strong policy environments, and blended‑finance opportunities converge.
The report concludes that fully valuing, accounting for, and compensating NCS benefits—alongside improved data systems, Indigenous‑led approaches, restoration investments, and public‑private partnerships—will be essential to unlocking the economic power of NCS and accelerating climate‑positive, nature‑positive growth across Canada.