diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index e69de29bb2d..d91940bddbc 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Inject an environment variable in the node functions emulator to tell the google-gax SDK not to look for the metadata service. (#6860)
diff --git a/src/emulator/functionsEmulator.ts b/src/emulator/functionsEmulator.ts
index d83e8c23f74..0cb50c96588 100644
--- a/src/emulator/functionsEmulator.ts
+++ b/src/emulator/functionsEmulator.ts
@@ -1349,6 +1349,7 @@ export class FunctionsEmulator implements EmulatorInstance {
       cwd: backend.functionsDir,
       env: {
         node: backend.bin,
+        METADATA_SERVER_DETECTION: "none",
         ...process.env,
         ...envs,
         PORT: socketPath,
@@ -1451,7 +1452,6 @@ export class FunctionsEmulator implements EmulatorInstance {
   /**
    * Gets the address of a running emulator, either from explicit args or by
    * consulting the emulator registry.
-   *
    * @param emulator
    */
   private getEmulatorInfo(emulator: Emulators): EmulatorInfo | undefined {