New Brunswick’s new flirtation with natural gas is heating up even as the Holt government admits that the province is not on track to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions targets for 2050.
The government quietly published its updated net-zero blueprint on Aug. 21, just days before Premier Susan Holt announced a review of the moratorium on shale gas development.
“New Brunswick is expected to reach our 2030 emissions target but is not currently on track to achieve net zero emissions by 2050,” the net-zero blueprint says.
The document says there are “policy gaps” to reaching the objective in four out of seven sectors and potentially in a fifth.
Province’s gas blitz threatens 2050 emissions targets
11 hours ago | Duration 2:54
New Brunswick’s net-zero plan is already off track as the government approves a power plant and studies shale gas revival.
“It’s surprising that they actually admit that, but it’s true,” said Beverly Gingras, executive director of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick.
The blueprint was posted online with no announcement or news release.
Two days after Holt launched the shale gas review, the province gave conditional environmental approval to a natural gas power plant to be built in Tantramar.
It’s also asking for public input on a proposed policy framework for data centres, another issue involving natural gas.
A proposed data centre for the Lorneville area of Saint John would be partly powered by an on-site natural gas plant.
It would become the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in New Brunswick, according to its environmental impact assessment filings.
“Committing to these natural gas plants all over New Brunswick and committing long-term — there’s no way we’re going to come even close to reaching these net-zero targets by 2050,” said Chris Watson, a Lorneville resident fighting the data centre.
The province's proposed guidelines for data centres say facilities that generate their own electricity “must use clean energy sources,” or must mitigate its emissions or “demonstrate a credible pathway to transitioning to clean generation.”
The Tantramar gas plant would emit 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases every year, according to filings by the proponent, U.S.-based ProEnergy.
N.B. Power has said the plant will allow for an overall lowering of emissions in the province because it will operate as a back-up to expanded renewable generation, such as wind and solar power.
Among the 45 conditions the province issued with its environmental impact approval was a requirement that ProEnergy prepare its own net-zero plan for the plant.
The company would not discuss how it plans to comply.
“The permitting and regulatory process is ongoing and, accordingly, we are not providing comment or granting interviews until permitting and regulatory requirements have been fully met,” said Francis Kusznir, ProEnergy’s vice-president of marketing.
Environment Department spokesperson Jennifer MacNeil said the plant will be subject to federal clean electricity regulations, which will require net zero emissions by 2050.
The plant could buy offset credits to comply, she said.
Natural gas doesn’t emit the quantity of greenhouse gases as other fossil fuels like coal, but its emissions still contribute to climate change.
The province defines net zero as a balance between the province’s greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere and the amount it removes.
Environment and Climate Change Minister Gilles LePage said the province is “going to reach our targets. I’m very confident that we will.”
He also said the projected emissions numbers for facilities like the Tantramar gas plant are presumptions, “but we can only have actual facts after it’s being built.”
LePage said he’s optimistic technology advances will also contribute to hitting the goal.
The net-zero blueprint says one of the policy gaps that need to be closed is industrial carbon pricing.
“Strengthening industrial carbon pricing would be needed,” it says.
Earlier this year the Holt government weakened the province’s carbon tax on large emitters when it adopted new, weaker federal pricing standards that will see the per-tonne price on emissions go up more slowly.
While the province is on track to hit its emissions goals for 2030, Gingras said it appears the Holt Liberals are leaving more substantive policy actions for a future government to deal with.
“Right now we’re seeing the effects of climate change every day," she said. "You are seeing it, and I am seeing it and every New Brunswicker is seeing it.
LePage said this week that the province has to have “a collaboration between the environment and the economics.”
His department’s blueprint forecasts that climate change will cause the province’s gross domestic product to decline in the coming decades.
It projects an economic loss of $2,080 to $4,350 per person and a reduction of five to 10 per cent in household incomes by 2100 as as a result of climate change.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Provincial Affairs reporter
Jacques Poitras has been CBC's provincial affairs reporter in New Brunswick since 2000. He grew up in Moncton and covered Parliament in Ottawa for the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal. He has reported on every New Brunswick election since 1995 and won awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association, the National Newspaper Awards and Amnesty International. He is also the author of five non-fiction books about New Brunswick politics and history.
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