This year is likely to be remembered as one in which conflict worsened around the globe and political upheaval was ubiquitous. Progress occurs every day, however, right under our noses, and there was plenty across the globe, even in 2024.
Here are 10 good news stories from this year that you might have missed.
1. A guinea worm milestone
In all of human history, we have eradicated two diseases—smallpox, in 1980, and rinderpest, in 2011. We are now on the cusp of eradicating a third: guinea worm.
Guinea worm is contracted by drinking water contaminated by guinea worm larvae and results in an adult worm breaking through the victim’s skin.
In the 1940s, annual cases in humans were near 50 million. That was brought down to 3.5 million by 1986, and, more recently, numbers have been steadily falling. There were 54 guinea worm cases in 2019, 27 in 2020, and 14 in 2023.
This year may prove to be the first in which human guinea worm cases drop to the single digits. Between January and June this year, only three cases were reported. Data on the second half of the year, however, is not yet available.
The global health community has set a target of 2030 for guinea worm’s eradication, with efforts focused on animal infections, which mostly occur in the central African nation of Chad and have been declining since 2019.
2. Progress on marriage equality
Same-sex marriage advocates can celebrate two big wins this year. Thailand became the first nation in Southeast Asia, and Greece the first Orthodox Christian nation, to legalize same-sex marriage. The bills in both countries allow same-sex couples to adopt children.
Elsewhere in the world, the Israeli Supreme Court also ruled that same-sex couples can adopt children, and Namibia’s high court decriminalized consensual same-sex relations.
3. Coal is dead in the U.K.
In September, the United Kingdom shut down its last coal-powered plant, joining a handful of countries on Earth that have phased out coal entirely.
Other nations, such as Chile, Denmark, and Greece, have also rapidly transitioned away from coal in recent years. The United States is shifting away from the fuel, as well, albeit more slowly. China and India, however, remain the world’s two biggest users and producers of coal, and it will be king there for decades to come.
4. Renewable energy expansion
The renewable energy expansion continued to break records this year. Particularly in the electricity sector, development has been swift. There, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that the share of global energy from renewables will jump from 30% in 2023 to 46% in 2030, with solar and wind predominating. In OECD countries, renewables and nuclear already account for 49% of total electricity generation.
Several countries are on track to reach 100% renewable electricity by the end of the decade.
What does this mean for the overall climate picture? This year was a contender for global emissions to finally peak, but, unfortunately, they are still rising. While we have made some gains on bending the greenhouse gas emissions curve since the Paris agreement was signed in 2015, we still have a long way to go.
5. AI archaeology
While there is plenty to bemoan about artificial intelligence (AI), it was also used as a tool for good in many areas this year, from uncovering ancient etchings in Peru to generating more accurate weather forecasts to aiding search and rescue teams to flagging $1 billion in check fraud.
Perhaps AI’s most fun contribution this year, however, was the work it did under the watchful eye of a “volunteer army of nerds” to decipher scrolls, unreadable for 275 years, that had been buried when Vesuvius erupted. The technology has revealed new historical information from these scrolls, such as the exact location of Plato’s burial place.
AI is also speeding up the translation process of The Epic of Gilgamesh, a 4,000-year-old epic poem that still has missing sections.
6. mRNA mania
We began to see the promise of mRNA technology this year beyond the groundbreaking coronavirus vaccines. Trials for the world’s first mRNA lung cancer vaccine began. About 130 patients in seven countries will receive jabs that are meant to kill cancer cells and prevent their return. (Cancer vaccines are usually therapeutic, not preventative, unlike how we normally think of vaccines.)
The world’s first trial for an mRNA vaccine against norovirus—the bug marked by intense vomiting and other gastrointestinal symptoms—also began across multiple countries.
7. Two treatment breakthroughs
The Food and Drug Administration approved Cobenfy this year, the first new drug for schizophrenia in decades, which works differently from other anti-psychotic medications. Instead of blocking dopamine, the combination drug targets proteins in the brain called muscarinic receptors.
Cobenfy relieves symptoms caused by schizophrenia, such as hallucinations and hearing voices, without the side effects of the drugs currently on the market, which can turn patients off from taking them.
There was also a lot of excitement around a new antiretroviral treatment, lenacapavir, which was found to be 100% effective in early trials at preventing HIV infection. It only needs to be injected twice a year, a significant improvement over the daily pills currently available—although Gilead, its manufacturer, is facing criticism for not making the game-changing treatment more accessible to lower-income countries.
8. Protecting women and girls
Several countries took steps this year to protect women and girls.
Colombia, Zambia, and Sierra Leone outlawed child marriage; in Colombia, advocacy groups had been trying to pass legislation around the issue for 17 years before they succeeded.
The possibility of lawmakers in Gambia reversing a ban on female genital cutting, also known as female genital mutilation, sparked international alarm in 2023. This year, the west African country decided to uphold the ban after testimony from survivors and health experts. Gambia would have been the first country in the world to reverse such a ban.
And in Malaysia, parliamentarians voted to update the country’s constitution so that children born abroad to Malaysian mothers would receive citizenship. Previously, only Malaysian fathers could confer the right. Now that Malaysia has changed its laws, only 23 countries in the world still ban or limit women from granting citizenship to their children.
9. Local progress against disease
Several countries eliminated diseases in 2024, which means that transmission has stopped within their borders.
- Jordan became the first country in the world to eliminate leprosy, a neglected tropical disease that results in 200,000 cases annually worldwide.
- Egypt was certified malaria-free, after being plagued by the disease since 4000 BCE.
- Cape Verde became the third African country to be declared free of malaria. It’s the first sub-Saharan country to be given the status in 50 years.
- Timor-Leste eliminated elephantiasis, a parasitic disease that leads to disfigurements from swelling later in life.
- India and Pakistan eliminated trachoma, a bacterial infection that is a leading cause of blindness. India is also on the cusp of eliminating black fever, the second-deadliest parasitic disease after malaria.
- Guinea eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus, a lethal disease typically contracted during unhygienic childbirth practices. It remains in only 10 countries.
10. Minimum wage hikes
The minimum wage landscape in the United States transformed this year.
According to data from Oxfam, 13% of American workers now earn under $15 per hour, down from nearly 32% in 2022. So much progress has been made that the advocacy group Fight for 15 changed its name to Fight for a Union.
In the November elections, Alaska and Missouri voted to increase their minimum wage to $15 per hour. And in 2025, Illinois, Delaware, and Rhode Island will reach a $15 minimum wage for the first time.
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