Room Outside of Doom: Climate Wins of the First Third of 2025
By Erika Pietrzak, May 30 , 2025
In a world where good news feels rare, especially in the fight against climate change, it’s more important than ever to pause and celebrate the wins we’ve all worked so hard for.
This year, as with much of the last decade, good news has been far and few between. With May being Mental Health Awareness Month, it is important to take a step away from the doom and gloom of climate work in today’s age and celebrate the hard-earned wins that communities across the globe have passionately fought for. While our climate’s future is uncertain , there are thousands of individuals who fight tirelessly for a better world and show us how much good truly is possible in today’s world, despite resistance from climate obstructors.
Seas and Poles
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) conducted a study this year on six sea turtle species and discovered several positive findings. Forty percent of the regional sea turtle populations were classified as low-risk threats, meaning they have “relatively high abundance, stable or increasing abundance trends, and relatively low population-level impacts of threats.” This represents almost twice as many low-risk threats across x species as when the study began in 2011, which is coupled with an almost 50 percent decrease in high-risk threats and three-quarters of all of the studied populations showing improved risk levels.
A report was officially released detailing the 2023 efforts that saw volunteers clean up over 28 thousand kilos (50 thousand pounds) of trash from the Arctic through the Arctic Cleanup Project. The nearly two thousand volunteers from nations around the Arctic found the majority of the waste had come from the fishing industry.
The Americas
Habitat loss and illegal pet trade has driven the Red-Tailed Amazon Parrot to near extinction in Brazil. Over the last twenty years, over one hundred installed artificial nests have almost doubled their population.
With rising seas and increasingly strong oceanic hazards threatening life along the shorelines of the Americas, Miami, Florida is creating a 3-D concrete living seawall inspired by mangroves. This will help create new homes for sea life and help protect Miami’s shorelines from storm surge.
Nearly two thousand manatees died in Florida between 2021 and 2022 due to widespread water quality problems and seagrass losses. A federal judge in April ruled that the state was in violation of the Endangered Species Act and thus “must develop a plan for addressing the pollution that led in recent years to an unprecedented die-off of manatees.”
In February, the Fort Peck Tribes in Montana gifted the Mosquito Grizzly Bear’s Head Lean Man First Nations in Saskatchewan a family group of Plains bison. This exchange represents the first time in history bison from Yellowstone National Park has crossed the border into Canada.. Providing reconnection for the Indigenous people of Canada to species of ancestral significance and revitalizing the bison population is a crucial step towards ecosystem revitalization on Indigenous lands
In the summer of 2024, California dispelled a common myth about clean energy. With current attacks on its reliability, the state successfully met 100 percent of their electricity demands for up to 10 hours of the day on 98 of 116 days from renewable energy sources. The state grid did not experience a single blackout throughout the summer of 2024 and peaked at meeting 162 percent of the grid’s demands.
Last year, Governor Moore of Maryland announced that the state was six years ahead of schedule of it’s goal of preserving 30 percent of its state land. By February 2024, 1.85 million acres of Maryland’s land was conserved.
Europe
In March it was announced that 52 percent more low-carbon heating systems were installed in 2023 than in 2024 across th United Kingdom (UK). This occurred because the government created incentives for UK residents to install heat pumps inside homes. These pumps use electricity rather than gas or oil, creating less emissions.
Expanding on levying heavy-emission vehicles, London experienced 27 percent improved air quality due to decreased nitrogen dioxide emissions. London's Ultra Low Emission Zone was created in 2019 and expanded in 2023, despite opposition from some due to increase in cost of living. Since 2019, 99 percent of London’s monitored locations have seen improved air quality.
The Plock of Kyle parkland in western Scotland was once home to a large golf course, but has been rewilded and is now a buzzing home for Scotland’s biodiversity. Locals are experiencing more interactions with nature and local officials praise the benefits of the diverse array of wildlife in the revitalized area. While golf courses have historically destroyed vital land and overuse already scarce water, the success of rewilding Plock of Kyle can be used in similar efforts globally.
In April, Europe’s highest court sided with two thousand Swiss women in ruling that the Swiss government did not do enough to combat climate change. Ruling that the country violated their citizens human rights, this landmark ruling “helps to determine to what extent almost all European countries violate the human rights of their citizens by not adequately mitigating the effects of climate change.” This can also be extended worldwide to understand how climate battles are fighting for human rights.
In December of 2024, Norway suspended its controversial deep sea mining plans for Arctic waters after widespread protests from its citizens, and vocal opposition from 32 surrounding countries. With many gaps in our knowledge of deep sea mining and its environmental harms, this has been deemed a “historic win for nature.”
Asia and Pacific
Since 2020, Australia’s capital of Canberra has been powered entirely by renewable energy sources, making it the first city outside Europe with a population over 100,000 to fully decarbonize its power grid. This is thanks to large-scale, long-term investments in solar and wind projects by the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the state where Canberra is located. The change lowered electricity costs for ratepayers and serves as a model for other Australian states to adopt clean energy.
In January, New Zealand granted Taranaki Mounga mountain the same legal rights as a person and the mountain will officially only be referred to by its Māori name for the first time since colonization. The mountain is one of the most symmetrical volcanic cones in the world and has considerable cultural significance to the Taranaki Māori. Thethe mountain and its surrounding areas will be administered by the tribes and crown. This comes as a major win for New Zealand as the legal personhood puts “in place a very Māori Indigenous concept into western law.”
In June 2024, four thousand Indigenous Papuans received legal recognition of their rights to stewardship of the tropical rainforests in South Sorong Regency. Over 90 thousand hectares of land are now protected from outside interests including logging and mining industries.
Indonesia banned plastic waste imports to diminish pollution and promote domestic recycling beginning on January 1, 2025. While critics warn that plastic waste disguised as paper imports may still enter the country, decreasing the country’s received annual 260,000 tons of plastic waste can help mitigate the health concerns the waste has caused over the last few decades. If the ban is adopted by neighboring countries like Malaysia, this change could be monumental for health in the region.
In November 2024, China completed a project that builta three thousand kilometer green belt around its biggest desert. By planting trees around the desert's edge, this belt seeks to extend forest coverage in China and divert flooding.
The Sihek, or Guam Kingfisher, is a strikingly colored bird from the Pacific Islands that was declared extinct in the wild in 1988 after the introduction of the brown tree snake saw sihek populations plummet. Culturally important to the Indigenous peoples of Guam, the fight to protect this bird has persisted for the last four decades. Today, an estimated 152 siheks are being cared for around the world and April saw the first sihek eggs laid in the wild in almost forty years.
Africa
In March, South Africa made the landmark decision to establish long-term fishing restrictions across six critical African penguin breeding sites. With an annual population decline of eight percent, “South Africa's Pretoria High Court has imposed ten-year no-fishing zones to prevent purse seine fishing vessels from catching sardines and anchovies, key prey for the penguins.”
In January, Zambia announced that leopard populations in Kafue National Park had nearly tripled due to the country’s conservation efforts. Advanced wildlife monitoring techniques, anti-poaching patrols, and community based efforts have been implemented to revitalize biodiversity across Zambia. The conservation practices used to help Zambia’s leopards may be extended to plans to protect other threatened species.
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