This yr is more likely to be remembered as one during which battle worsened across the globe and political upheaval was ubiquitous. Progress happens every single day, nonetheless, proper beneath our noses, and there was a lot throughout the globe, even in 2024.
Listed here are 10 excellent news tales from this yr that you simply may need missed.
1. A guinea worm milestone
In all of human historical past, we’ve eradicated two illnesses—smallpox, in 1980, and rinderpest, in 2011. We are actually on the cusp of eradicating a 3rd: guinea worm.
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Guinea worm is contracted by ingesting water contaminated by guinea worm larvae and leads to an grownup worm breaking by means of the sufferer’s pores and skin.
Within the Nineteen Forties, annual circumstances in people had been close to 50 million. That was introduced down to three.5 million by 1986, and, extra lately, numbers have been steadily falling. There have been 54 guinea worm circumstances in 2019, 27 in 2020, and 14 in 2023.
This yr could show to be the primary during which human guinea worm circumstances drop to the only digits. Between January and June this yr, solely three circumstances had been reported. Knowledge on the second half of the yr, nonetheless, is just not but out there.
The worldwide well being neighborhood has set a goal of 2030 for guinea worm’s eradication, with efforts targeted on animal infections, which largely happen within the central African nation of Chad and have been declining since 2019.
2. Progress on marriage equality
Identical-sex marriage advocates can rejoice two massive wins this yr. Thailand grew to become the primary nation in Southeast Asia, and Greece the primary Orthodox Christian nation, to legalize same-sex marriage. The payments in each nations enable same-sex {couples} to undertake youngsters.
Elsewhere on the earth, the Israeli Supreme Court docket additionally dominated that same-sex {couples} can undertake youngsters, and Namibia’s excessive court docket decriminalized consensual same-sex relations.
3. Coal is useless within the U.Okay.
In September, the UK shut down its final coal-powered plant, becoming a member of a handful of nations on Earth which have phased out coal completely.
Different nations, akin to Chile, Denmark, and Greece, have additionally quickly transitioned away from coal in recent times. The US is shifting away from the gasoline, as nicely, albeit extra slowly. China and India, nonetheless, stay the world’s two greatest customers and producers of coal, and it will likely be king there for many years to come back.
4. Renewable power enlargement
The renewable power enlargement continued to interrupt information this yr. Notably within the electrical energy sector, growth has been swift. There, the Worldwide Power Company (IEA) forecasts that the share of worldwide power from renewables will soar from 30% in 2023 to 46% in 2030, with photo voltaic and wind predominating. In OECD nations, renewables and nuclear already account for 49% of complete electrical energy technology.
A number of nations are on monitor to succeed in 100% renewable electrical energy by the tip of the last decade.
What does this imply for the general local weather image? This yr was a contender for world emissions to lastly peak, however, sadly, they’re nonetheless rising. Whereas we’ve made some positive factors on bending the greenhouse gasoline emissions curve because the Paris settlement was signed in 2015, we nonetheless have an extended solution to go.
5. AI archaeology
Whereas there’s a lot to bemoan about synthetic intelligence (AI), it was additionally used as a device for good in lots of areas this yr, from uncovering historical etchings in Peru to producing extra correct climate forecasts to aiding search and rescue groups to flagging $1 billion in examine fraud.
Maybe AI’s most enjoyable contribution this yr, nonetheless, was the work it did beneath the watchful eye of a “volunteer military of nerds” to decipher scrolls, unreadable for 275 years, that had been buried when Vesuvius erupted. The expertise has revealed new historic info from these scrolls, such because the actual location of Plato’s burial place.
AI can be rushing up the interpretation strategy of The Epic of Gilgamesh, a 4,000-year-old epic poem that also has lacking sections.
6. mRNA mania
We started to see the promise of mRNA expertise this yr past the groundbreaking coronavirus vaccines. Trials for the world’s first mRNA lung most cancers vaccine started. About 130 sufferers in seven nations will obtain jabs that are supposed to kill most cancers cells and forestall their return. (Most cancers vaccines are often therapeutic, not preventative, in contrast to how we usually consider vaccines.)
The world’s first trial for an mRNA vaccine towards norovirus—the bug marked by intense vomiting and different gastrointestinal signs—additionally started throughout a number of nations.
7. Two therapy breakthroughs
The Meals and Drug Administration accepted Cobenfy this yr, the primary new drug for schizophrenia in many years, which works in another way from different anti-psychotic drugs. As a substitute of blocking dopamine, the mixture drug targets proteins within the mind known as muscarinic receptors.
Cobenfy relieves signs attributable to schizophrenia, akin to hallucinations and listening to voices, with out the uncomfortable side effects of the medicine presently in the marketplace, which might flip sufferers off from taking them.
There was additionally plenty of pleasure round a brand new antiretroviral therapy, lenacapavir, which was discovered to be 100% efficient in early trials at stopping HIV an infection. It solely must be injected twice a yr, a big enchancment over the day by day capsules presently out there—though Gilead, its producer, is going through criticism for not making the game-changing therapy extra accessible to lower-income nations.
8. Defending ladies and women
A number of nations took steps this yr to guard ladies and women.
Colombia, Zambia, and Sierra Leone outlawed little one marriage; in Colombia, advocacy teams had been making an attempt to go laws across the problem for 17 years earlier than they succeeded.
The potential of lawmakers in Gambia reversing a ban on feminine genital slicing, often known as feminine genital mutilation, sparked worldwide alarm in 2023. This yr, the west African nation determined to uphold the ban after testimony from survivors and well being specialists. Gambia would have been the primary nation on the earth to reverse such a ban.
And in Malaysia, parliamentarians voted to replace the nation’s structure in order that youngsters born overseas to Malaysian moms would obtain citizenship. Beforehand, solely Malaysian fathers might confer the appropriate. Now that Malaysia has modified its legal guidelines, solely 23 nations on the earth nonetheless ban or restrict ladies from granting citizenship to their youngsters.
9. Native progress towards illness
A number of nations eradicated illnesses in 2024, which implies that transmission has stopped inside their borders.
- Jordan grew to become the primary nation on the earth to remove leprosy, a uncared for tropical illness that leads to 200,000 circumstances yearly worldwide.
- Egypt was licensed malaria-free, after being suffering from the illness since 4000 BCE.
- Cape Verde grew to become the third African nation to be declared freed from malaria. It’s the primary sub-Saharan nation to be given the standing in 50 years.
- Timor-Leste eradicated elephantiasis, a parasitic illness that results in disfigurements from swelling later in life.
- India and Pakistan eradicated trachoma, a bacterial an infection that could be a main explanation for blindness. India can be on the cusp of eliminating black fever, the second-deadliest parasitic illness after malaria.
- Guinea eradicated maternal and neonatal tetanus, a deadly illness usually contracted throughout unhygienic childbirth practices. It stays in solely 10 nations.
10. Minimal wage hikes
The minimal wage panorama in the USA reworked this yr.
In line with information from Oxfam, 13% of American employees now earn beneath $15 per hour, down from almost 32% in 2022. A lot progress has been made that the advocacy group Combat for 15 modified its title to Combat for a Union.
Within the November elections, Alaska and Missouri voted to extend their minimal wage to $15 per hour. And in 2025, Illinois, Delaware, and Rhode Island will attain a $15 minimal wage for the primary time.