DIEPPE, New Brunswick – As Irving Tissue celebrated its fifth anniversary in Macon, Georgia, company President Robert K. Irving unveiled its latest expansion project. …The $600 million (USD) investment will add another 100 jobs and include a third ThruAir Dry paper making machine, additional converting lines, and a new fully automated warehouse,” said Mr. Irving. …Irving Tissue’s plant in Macon currently employs more than 400 people. It produces ultra-premium quality household paper products including soft bath tissue and high-quality paper towel that is both strong and absorbent. …“Since choosing Macon in 2017, Irving Tissue has invested around $1.5 billion (USD) into the community and created 400 well-paying jobs, with another 100 jobs on their way, for hardworking Georgians,” said Governor Kemp. The announcement will increase Irving Tissue’s annual ThruAir Dry capacity by 75,000 tonnes, the equivalent of 15 million cases. Total annual capacity at the Macon plant will now be 225,000 tonnes.
Related coverage in the Associated Press: Canada’s Irving Tissue plans a US$600M factory expansion in Georgia
Leaders in two industries critical to rural and northern B.C. — mining and forestry — are calling on the new ministers in those areas to improve the regulatory competitiveness of those industries. …Parmar had asked Premier David Eby to head his ministry, having served in it as a senior ministerial advisor before entering elected politics. …Linda Coady, COFI CEO said her organization looks forward to working with Minister Parmar to take what she called “urgent actions”. Coady added it is important that new minister focus on “strengthening the competitiveness” of the forestry sector to support critical rural, resource-based workers, businesses, and communities, advance reconciliation with First Nations and ensure healthy biodiversity and ecosystem outcomes. A focus on three priorities can help achieve these goals, she added. The first concerns stabilizing and increasing fibre supply. …The second concerns securing new agreements with First Nations. …The third concerns forest management.
BRUSSELS – The European Parliament sought on Thursday to water down a ban on the import of commodities such as beef and soy linked to deforestation, and backed a one year delay to the new rule, in a fresh push-back against the EU’s environmental agenda. The European Commission proposed a 12-month delay until December 2025 last month after complaints from a group of 20 EU countries, some companies and non-EU countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and the United States. However, it did not propose any changes to the substance of the law. …The parliament’s narrow vote to add a new ‘no risk’ category of countries with far lighter controls adds to uncertainty over the regulation as lawmakers will have to enter negotiations with EU governments. …Environmental groups said the vote was a terrible signal. Julia Christian at Fern, said the amendment would give EU forested countries a free pass and was “particularly egregious”.
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to impose sweeping new tariffs on imports, leading his critics to argue that the plan will raise prices and spur inflation. …Nearly 10% of building materials used in residential construction are imported, according to the NAHB… and Canada probably accounts for the bulk of those imports. “Any tariffs that raise the cost of building products will have a detrimental effect on housing affordability,” says NAHB CEO Jim Tobin. ….A steep tariff on Canadian lumber would likely hit homebuilders the hardest—and could raise the prices of new homes, at least temporarily. But observers are skeptical that Trump would impose a steep, immediate tariff on such a fundamental raw material imported from a close ally. NAR’s Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said that it’s possible any tariff on lumber could be imposed over a ramp-up period to allow U.S. timber mills to boost production.
OTTAWA – Canada’s annual inflation rate accelerated more than expected to 2% in October as gas prices fell less than the previous month, data showed on Tuesday, shrinking market bets for a bigger rate cut next month. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast the inflation rate would speed up to 1.9% from 1.6% in September. In August, the annual rate was 2%. It was the first pick-up in the annual inflation rate since May. The central bank forecasts consumer price inflation to be 2.5% this year and 2.2% next year. …This was the last inflation data to be released ahead of the Bank of Canada’s interest rate announcement on Dec. 11, and currency markets now see around a 28% chance of a 50 basis point rate cut, down from 37% before the CPI data release.
VANCOUVER, BC — Conifex Timber reported results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2024. EBITDA was negative $3.9 million for the quarter compared to EBITDA of negative $7.1 million in the second quarter of 2024 and negative $6.7 million in the third quarter of 2023. Net loss was $3.8 million for the quarter versus net loss of $9.7 million in the previous quarter and negative $8.0 million for the year-earlier quarter. …Shipments of Conifex-produced lumber totaled 29.3 million board feet in the third quarter of 2024, representing a decrease of 24% from the 38.5 million board feet shipped in the previous quarter. …Looking ahead to the final quarter of 2024, our average mill net selling price through the first six weeks of the quarter was 17.5% higher.
ONTARIO — Housing starts over the next few years will likely weaken and the already-dire supply shortage could get even worse, the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON) is warning. A 
The uptick in fuel prices will likely be temporary, said Ken Simonson, chief economist at the Associated General Contractors of America. However, the broader uncertainty tied to potential trade policy changes under the incoming Trump administration presents a new layer of unpredictability for contractors. …Future prices for crude oil and copper, typically reliable predictors of upcoming producer price index shifts, have recently declined. That indicates the potential for a near-term dip in energy input costs, he said. Contractors have largely benefited from input price stabilization in 2024. As of October, contractors expect their profit margins to expand through the first quarter of 2025. …“The next administration’s trade policy increases uncertainty regarding construction material costs,” said Basu. “Beyond the implications of potential tariffs, input prices may rise in the short term if purchasers rush to import materials prior to the implementation of those policies.”
WASHINGTON – US single-family homebuilding tumbled in October as Hurricanes Helene and Milton depressed activity in the South and permits rose slightly, suggesting that a rebound was likely to be muted by higher mortgage rates. Single-family housing starts, which account for the bulk of homebuilding, plunged 6.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 970,000 units last month, the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau said on Tuesday. Data for September was revised higher to show homebuilding rising to a rate of 1.042 million units from the previously reported pace of 1.027 million units. Single-family starts dropped 10.2% in the South. Permits for future construction of single-family housing gained 0.5% to a rate of 968,000 units. …Mortgage rates initially fell as the Federal Reserve started cutting interest rates in September. They have, however, erased that decline on strong economic data and concerns that Trump’s policies could reignite inflation.
The global market for mass timber is expected to grow to $3.7 billion by 2032 from $1.5 billion in 2020, according to 2023 report. This growth is being driven by the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific building construction industries. Hyperlocal approaches to creating a mass timber industry are already taking shape around the world. …In North America, 
VERNON, BC — Tolko Industries continues to dispute a $75,000 fine after a logging road it built is claimed to have caused a landslide. In question is a logging road constructed by Tolko Industries in 2011. It’s alleged the road ultimately led to a landslide in May 2017 resulting in the administrative fine. Following the issuance of the fine in 2022, Tolko launched an appeal. Most recently, legal wrangling between Tolko and the province is centring around a variety of documents, including slide inspections. The 
The last decade’s economic, social, and environmental changes have affected the production, consumption, prices, and trade of forest products. 
Member states close the door to further tweaks to the new deforestation rules pushed by unusual right-wing majority in the European Parliament. EU diplomats have rejected European Parliament amendments to the Commission’s proposal to push back the entry into force of the bloc’s new deforestation rules by one year. Instead, member states insist on adhering to the original text. …Among the amendments, MEPs sought to introduce a new classification for countries posing “no risk” of deforestation, alongside the existing categories of low, standard, and high risk. However, in a meeting of EU ambassadors, member states reaffirmed they want to stick to the original proposal. “Opening the text would only generate legal uncertainty and huge time constraints,” the source continued. An interinstitutional meeting between MEPs and EU countries to hash out the divergences might take place as soon as tomorrow.
Author and climate scientist Thomas Pedersen says British Columbians should be proud of the lead the province took with its carbon tax. Despite facing possible elimination, it remains an elegant solution to a global threat, he says. In his recently released book The Carbon Tax Question: Clarifying Canada’s Most Consequential Policy Debate, the former executive director of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions provides an engaging political history of B.C.’s pioneering effort and takes aim at cynical politicians offering simplistic slogans aimed at killing carbon pricing. “A single province on the westernmost side of Canada stepped up and showed all nations that fair, redistributive, broad-spectrum carbon pricing could be done and done well, without economic harm,” Pedersen wrote. …The book arrives as politicians at both ends of the spectrum have soured on carbon taxes.
A recent wood pellet conference held in B.C. promoted biomass pellets as a green and climate-friendly energy solution. However, this rapidly expanding industry is not the climate saviour it has been made out to be. …These markets promise a climate solution by replacing coal, and so are incentivized globally by billions of dollars in subsidies. ..The story is that biomass pellets are made from wood waste, but in truth, a significant volume comes from whole trees, often from primary forests. …And while industry proponents claim that biomass is carbon-neutral, this only holds true if the trees are left to regrow fully — a process that can take centuries. In the meantime, burning of biomass accelerates carbon emissions at a time when we need immediate reductions. …B.C. should ban the export of wood pellets. International subsidies increase pressure on B.C.s forests and stand contrary to developing a real value-added industry here in B.C.
The battle to keep global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius has been a rallying cry for climate action for nearly a decade. Now, with the planet almost certain to blow past the target, diplomats and campaigners at the COP29 summit have found themselves awkwardly clinging to a goal that no longer makes sense. The evidence has become harder and harder to ignore. This year will once again be the hottest on record as greenhouse gas emissions continue to soar and Earth will likely register an average reading of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for the first time. A study released this month using a new technique for measuring the rise in temperatures suggests the world was 