New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt has abandoned her campaign promise to impose a more robust carbon price on the province's 15 biggest industrial emitters. The reversal follows a federal deal with Alberta that lowered the national carbon price benchmark from $170 per tonne by 2030 to $140 per tonne by 2040, with the lower rate now applying to all provinces. The change immediately dropped this year's price from $110 to $95 per tonne. The province's largest emitters include Irving Oil's Saint John refinery and three N.B. Power fossil fuel plants. Total emissions from these 15 facilities rose from 5.9 million tonnes in 2023 to 6.4 million in 2024, partly due to increased output from N.B. Power's coal and oil plants during a nuclear outage. The output-based pricing system issued more carbon credits in 2024, but critics say the system lacks transparency and may not be stringent enough to drive real reductions. Green Party Leader David Coon criticized the move as a weakening of an already weak system. Policy analysts warn the Alberta deal's complex pricing structure creates uncertainty for provinces and facilities trying to plan long-term investments in emissions reduction.
