New administration under Samia Suluhu gives hope after 5 years of hopelessness

In France, unions led several nationwide protests last month against rising living costs. Mr. Macron’s government has spent 71.6 billion euros, equivalent to $71.7 billion, to shield households and businesses from the energy crisis, according to Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. Inflation remains lower in France than in the U.S. and most other European countries. Still, rising energy and food prices have taken a heavy political toll on Mr. Macron.

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More than nine out of 10 French people say the measures taken by the government to soften the blow of inflation are either insufficient or ineffective, according to an Elabe poll of 1,000 people published on Wednesday. About half of the people questioned said they had to recently cancel holiday plans because of the rising cost of living, and more than a third said they stopped buying certain food products, the poll showed.

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Naima Nefzi, a 55-year-old daycare center worker who participated in protests on Thursday in Paris, said she has resorted to buying food, such as meat or cheese, which has passed its expiration date, because it is cheape.

“I don’t have a choice,” she said

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Mr. Macron lost his majority in the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament, in June as the far-right and the far-left gained ground. His party and its allies won the largest number of seats in the National Assembly but not enough to retain the majority that allowed the French leader to steamroll the opposition during his first term. In recent weeks, Mr. Macron’s government has faced down six no-confidence votes after it decided to invoke Article 49 of France’s constitution to bypass parliament and pass budget bills for 2023.

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The government survived the votes put forward by the far-right National Rally and the NUPES—a coalition of left-leaning parties—because lawmakers from the conservative party Les Républicains didn’t back them.

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Les Républicains lawmakers, however, have warned their support shouldn’t be taken for granted. They recently said they could put forward their own no-confidence motion if they felt it necessary, a move that would imperil Mr. Macron’s government if National Rally and the NUPES backed it. Mr. Macron has said that in this case he would consider dissolving the National Assembly and calling for new parliamentary elections.

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We congratulate Gabon for taking care of its indigenous forests




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Gabon may soon no longer need yo collect taxes after windfalls of billion of dollars per year from selling carbon credits.

They can sale upto 90 million credits per year almost equivalent of what was globally sold last year.

The African nation of Gabon, one of the most densely forested on earth, is launching the world’s biggest sale of carbon-offset credits. The plan could net the country billions of dollars and upend the fast-growing market for carbon credits.

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Gabon, which sits on Africa’s west coast, is 88% forest. It has slowed the cutting of those trees and is now seeking to sell credits for the emissions decline it has achieved. The trees pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, reducing greenhouse gases.

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“In a self-interested way we’re looking at the money,” said Lee White, a U.K.-born zoologist and naturalized Gabonese citizen who is the country’s environment minister. “But then we’re also looking at potentially being an example of how it can work so that we can actually get this scale” needed to help curb global emissions growth, he said.

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Gabon’s move comes as countries from Indonesia to India attempt to take control of the potential revenue generated by emissions-reduction activities within their borders. Many, like Gabon, are looking for new ways to issue and sell large volumes of carbon credits. In the coming weeks, Gabon will likely try to sell 90 million credits, which is nearly the same as the total of similar credits issued last year.

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“If Gabon can do it, Congo can do it and DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo] can do it, and Suriname can do it,” said Mr. White, who for years ran the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Gabon program as well as the country’s national park system.

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These countries are trying to better manage credit issuance and revenues, which have often been in the hands of private project developers. They are hoping to keep a bigger slice of the profits and ensure they can use the credits toward their own emissions-reduction promises. Some countries including Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Honduras have halted crediting or sales from the private conservation projects.

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The market for carbon credits is booming as businesses and investors buy them to offset their emissions or potentially resell them at a profit. Rich governments are increasingly looking to the carbon markets as a way to increase private funding for climate-related projects in developing nations. The U.S. proposed a new carbon-crediting program at the United Nations climate conference in Egypt, which would aim to help developing countries wean themselves off fossil fuels.

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Gabon has historically made most of its money from oil and gas, and it is looking to its forests to provide a much bigger share of national revenue as the globe shifts away from fossil fuels. The country wants to build a sustainable timber and wood-products industry that can earn revenue while continuing to generate credits, Mr. White said.

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Gabon’s sale is controversial. Each of its credits represent one metric ton of carbon emissions that the country has reduced by actions, such as halting illegal logging, during the nine years through 2018. But Gabon isn’t selling its emissions reductions through the standard channels, where developing countries often get a relatively low price of $5 a ton for credits.

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Instead, Gabon is hoping to get higher prices and better terms by going directly to a swath of potential buyers, including private-sector companies that until now have generally purchased forest-conservation credits on a much smaller scale. Similar credits to Gabon’s on the voluntary market can fetch $15 a ton or more.

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Such sales haven’t worked out for some other countries. Papua New Guinea put nine million credits up for sale last year using the same method as Gabon, but only 20,000 or so have been sold. Honduras and Belize are thinking of following suit, said Kevin Conrad, executive director of New York-based nonprofit Coalition for Rainforest Nations, which manages the crediting standard Gabon is using.

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Potential buyers will need to be reassured that the money will go to the appropriate recipients, such as people living in the forests that are being preserved, and not to line official pockets, said Patrice Lefeu, climate-finance leader at Ernst & Young. One way to do that is by setting up an independently audited fund to manage the money, he said. EY is pitching such services to Gabon.

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