What happened
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu (pictured above) resigned yesterday, less than 24 hours after forming a cabinet to lead his country through a period of prolonged instability. Lecornu, a close ally of French President Emmanuel Macron, was the country’s third prime minister to step down in the past year and had been in office for less than a month, making his the shortest-lived government in modern French history. 

Who said what
“The conditions were not fulfilled for me to carry out my function as prime minister,” Lecornu said in a statement blaming “partisan appetites” for his rapid downfall. His resignation, which shocked France, “came amid turmoil over the composition of his cabinet, an uneasy coalition of centrists and conservatives,” The New York Times said. 

The collapse of the government prompted calls from the leftist France Unbowed and far-right National Rally parties for Macron to call snap elections, and they have already launched efforts to “encourage French citizens to register to vote,” France 24 said. “The farce has lasted long enough,” National Rally panjandrum Marine Le Pen told reporters.

What next?
Macron asked Lecornu, who is staying on in a caretaker capacity, to “hold last-ditch talks with other political parties” in an effort to “chart a path out of the crisis,” said Reuters. But with France’s 2027 presidential elections on the horizon, the BBC said, the “deeper truth” of this political crisis is that “the more time passes, the harder it is going to be for anyone — even the most gifted of Macron acolytes — to set up a stable government.”

What happened
Solar and wind power outpaced new demand for electricity in the first half of the year, energy think tank Ember said in a report last night, and for the first time, renewable energy sources generated more power than coal. The boom in renewables, especially solar power, led to a slight decrease in fossil fuel generation worldwide, the researchers found. But fossil fuel use, and greenhouse gas emissions, rose in the European Union and U.S.

Who said what
The combination of the “small” but “significant” drop in fossil fuel use and renewables keeping “pace with growing appetite for electricity worldwide” represents a “turning point when we see emissions plateauing,” said study lead author Małgorzata Wiatros-Motyka. China added more solar and wind capacity than the rest of the world combined, and lower-income countries now account for 58% of solar generation thanks to a “spectacular reductions in cost,” the BBC said. The EU burned more coal and gas due to “months of weak wind and hydropower performance.”

In the U.S., President Donald Trump has launched an “assault on clean energy policy and related funding” while steering resources to boost coal and oil production, The Associated Press said. At the largest U.S. federal coal auction in over a decade, the lone buyer yesterday bid “one-tenth of a penny per ton, underscoring coal’s diminished value” despite Trump’s efforts.

What next?
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission projects that solar and wind will make up 83% of new U.S. electricity capacity through mid-2028. “I am very cautiously optimistic” that renewables can “continue to displace fossil fuels in the U.S.,” Amanda Smith, a senior scientist at research organization Project Downtown, told the AP. “I am more optimistic on the world scale.”