Big N.B. emitters polluted less in 2023, but fell further behind targets
CBC
New Brunswick's biggest industrial carbon emitters pumped out lower amounts of greenhouse gases in 2023, but the reductions were not enough to keep pace with tightening emissions standards.
The gap between the total emissions by the province's 15 biggest industrial polluters and their regulated emissions limits grew larger, according to numbers from the provincial government.
That left them paying more under the province's credit-trading carbon pricing system.
Even so, that system is gaining traction, with more of those credits changing hands.
"I see good and bad news in these numbers," said Ross Linden-Fraser, a policy analyst with the Canadian Climate Institute who reviewed the numbers for CBC News
In 2023, the number of carbon credits traded — credits that emitters earn for lowering emissions and that they can then resell — was 18 times greater than in 2022.
That shows that the emitters have confidence in the system, Linder-Fraser said.
But the emissions limits that apply to each polluter get slightly stricter each year, and in 2023, emissions did not shrink enough to keep pace.
"What I see year over year is: the average isn't improving fast enough, and that's why facilities are paying more," he said.
Jonathan Alward, the vice-president of policy at the Atlantica Centre for Energy, an industry-backed research institute, said that because lowering emissions involves large, multi-year projects, reductions may seem to be slow.
"You'll see them make big investments and that's where the majority of the emission reduction will come from," he said.
The province refuses to provide the individual emissions standards for each of the 15 plants or the price they pay for credits because that is considered sensitive commercial information.
That makes it impossible to tell which of the 15 emitters fell short.
In a small province, "I don't think it would be fair to those businesses and their competitiveness to release any more information than that," Alward said.
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WARNING: This story contains disturbing details about gruesome deaths and sexual abuse.