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OTTAWA — The federal government is increasing the carbon tax on new natural-gas plants to discourage power companies from building them.

The change is part of final regulations for the government’s carbon-tax system for big industrial greenhouse-gas emitters which were released Friday.

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It means any natural gas plant that starts operating after 2021 will have to pay the carbon price on a higher portion of its emissions each year until 2030, when it will pay the price on all emissions.

The big-emitters program, known officially as the “output-based pricing system,” affects businesses that produce more than 50,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, the equivalent of about 10,000 cars’ emissions.

It is designed to limit impacts on competitiveness for major industrial emitters, who will pay the carbon tax on a portion of what they emit rather than on all the fuels that they use; an emissions standard is set for every industry and companies only pay the carbon price on what they emit above that standard.