From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

Outgoing President Joe Biden announced a new climate target of reducing American carbon emissions from 61-66% over the next decade, even though President Trump would be able to undo it as soon as next month.

Outgoing President Joe Biden announced December 19 a new climate target of reducing American carbon emissions of more than 60% over the next decade, even though returning President Donald Trump would be able to undo it as soon as next month.

“Today, as the United States continues to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy, President Biden is announcing a new climate target for the United States: a 61-66 percent reduction in 2035 from 2005 levels in economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions,” the White House announced, the Washington Free Beacon reports. The new target will be formally submitted to the United Nations Climate Change secretariat.

“President Biden’s new 2035 climate goal is both a reflection of what we’ve already accomplished,” Biden climate adviser John Podesta added, “and what we believe the United States can and should achieve in the future.”

The announcement may be little more than a symbolic gesture in the end, however, as Trump is widely expected to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement upon resuming office in January, in the process voiding related climate obligations.

Trump formally pulled out of the Paris accords in August 2017, the first year of his first term, with then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley stating that the administration would be “open to re-engaging in the Paris Agreement if the United States can identify terms that are more favorable to it, its business, its workers, its people, and its taxpayers.”

Such terms were never reached, however, leaving America out until Biden re-committed the nation to the Paris Agreement on the first day of his presidency, obligating U.S. policy to new economic regulations to cut carbon emissions.

In June, the Trump campaign confirmed Trump’s intentions to withdraw from Paris again. At the time, Trump’s team was reportedly mulling a number of non-finalized drafts of executive orders to do so.

Left-wing consternation on the matter is based on certitude in “anthropogenic global warming” (AGW) or “climate change,” the thesis that human activity, rather than natural phenomena, is primarily responsible for Earth’s changing climate and that such trends pose a danger to the planet in the form of rising sea levels and weather instability.

Activists have long claimed there is a “97 percent scientific consensus” in favor of AGW, but that number comes from a distortion of an overview of 11,944 papers from peer-reviewed journals, 66.4 percent of which expressed no opinion on the question; in fact, many of the authors identified with the AGW “consensus” later spoke out to say their positions had been misrepresented.

AGW proponents suffered a blow in 2010 with the discovery that their leading researchers at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, East Anglia Climate Research Unit, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had engaged in widespread data manipulation, flawed climate models, misrepresentation of sources, and suppression of dissenting findings in order to make the so-called “settled science” say what climate activists wanted it to.

By Tegan Hill

Each Albertan would save up to $2,850 in 2027—the first year of the hypothetical Alberta plan—while retaining the same benefits as the CPP. Meanwhile, the basic CPP contribution rate for the rest of Canada would increase to 10.36 per cent.

Despite a new report from Canada’s chief actuary about Alberta’s potential plan to leave the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and start its own separate provincial pension plan, Albertans still don’t have an official estimate from Ottawa about Alberta’s share of CPP assets.

The actuary analyzed how the division of assets might be calculated, but did not provide specific numbers.

Yet according to a report commissioned by the Smith government and released last year, Alberta’s share of CPP assets totalled an estimated $334 billion—more than half the value of total CPP assets. Based on that number, if Alberta left the CPP, Albertans would pay a contribution rate of 5.91 per cent for a new CPP-like provincial program (a significant reduction from the current 9.9 per cent CPP rate deducted from their paycheques). As a result, each Albertan would save up to $2,850 in 2027—the first year of the hypothetical Alberta plan—while retaining the same benefits as the CPP. Meanwhile, the basic CPP contribution rate for the rest of Canada would increase to 10.36 per cent.

Why would Albertans pay less under a provincial plan?

Because Alberta has a comparatively younger population (i.e. more workers vs. retirees), higher average incomes and higher levels of employment (i.e. higher level of premiums paid into the fund). As such, Albertans collectively pay significantly more into the CPP than retirees in Alberta receive in benefits. Simply put, under a provincial plan, Albertans would pay less and receive the same benefits.

Some critics, however, dispute the estimated share of Alberta’s CPP assets (again, $334 billion—more than half the value of total CPP assets) in the Smith government’s report, and claim the estimate understates the report’s contribution rate for a new Alberta pension plan and overestimates the new CPP rate without Alberta.

Which takes us back to the new report from Canada’s chief actuary, which was supposed to provide its own estimate of Alberta’s share of the assets. Unfortunately, it did not.

But there are other rate estimates out there, based on various assumptions. According to a 2019 analysis published by the Fraser Institute, the contribution rate for a new separate CPP-like program in Alberta could be as low as 5.85 per cent, while AIMCo’s 2019 estimate was 7.21 per cent (and possibly as low as 6.85 per cent). And University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe has pegged Alberta’s hypothetical rate at 8.2 per cent.

While the actuary in Ottawa failed to provide any numbers, one thing’s for certain—according to the available estimates, Albertans would pay a lower contribution rate in a separate provincial pension plan while CPP contributions for the rest of Canada (excluding Quebec) would likely increase.

Tegan Hill

Director, Alberta Policy, Fraser Institute