OTTAWA — Canadian exports of thermal coal increased another seven per cent last year, reaching the highest level in almost a decade. The boom in exports of the kind of coal burned to make electricity comes as Canada leads a charge to end the use of coal as a source of power worldwide, including at home.
The Liberals also promised three years ago that all thermal coal exports will stop from Canada by 2030, but exports have risen almost 20 per cent since that promise was made.
Statistics published this month by the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert show 19.5 million tonnes of thermal coal were exported through their terminals last year. That’s up from a little more than 18 million tonnes in 2022 and is almost twice the amount Canada exported in 2015 when the Liberals took power.
In 2022 more than half Canada’s exports were coal produced in the United States, mainly Wyoming and Montana, that is shipped by rail to Vancouver and then across the Pacific. Most U.S. west coast ports won’t allow thermal coal exports anymore, said Fraser Thomson, a staff lawyer at Ecojustice.
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