dialogue summary report
Since early 2025, Urban Climate Leadership has been engaging with local governments and related stakeholders to understand how AI is impacting Canadian communities and their ability to effectively pursue equitable climate action.
Following directions from previous dialogues, UCL’s most recent session on April 30, 2026, focused specifically on AI data centres and local governments in Canada and built on this discussion primer. Participants were asked to identify the risks and opportunities that data centres might pose to communities, and what measures would be needed to ensure that data centres were ‘good neighbours’ in a community.
This report summarizes the discussion, captures the conversation's themes, and outlines the next steps in this process.