Top Environmental Good News Stories of 2024

There was so much bad news in 2024, it is easy to overlook the cornucopia of environmental success stories.  While we cannot afford to ignore setbacks and defeats, we should also acknowledge the victories that doomscrolling misses.  

There were major successes in 2024, like the UN announcement that the ozone layer has bounced back from the brink and is headed towards full recovery. There are also important local victories like emission reductions in the state of Maryland and the proliferation of renewable energy in rural communities all around the world.

A year of bad news for the environment

Before we review all the environmental good news, we need to contextualize by encapsulating the cascading avalanche of bad news. There is no avoiding the fact that 2024 was a terrible year for the health of the planet and human well-being. We witnessed biophysical declines alongside social deterioration.

Biophysical decline: Rising emissions, temperature and extreme weather

Climate change-causing emissions kept rising last year reaching a record high of 41.6 billion tons. The result is increasing temperatures and more frequent and destructive extreme weather events. In 2024 average global temperatures set a record exceeding the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C (2.7F) upper threshold limit for the first time in recorded history. The confluence of fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and droughts in 2024 provided more evidence of a worsening trend.

The global water cycle was off balance for the first time in history, and parts of the world’s oceans are becoming too acidic to sustain marine life. We are transgressing planetary boundaries at an alarming rate and natural systems are breaking down. This includes critical natural carbon sinks that typically absorb most human-generated emissions. As the Earth warms, these sinks have stopped working, resulting in more heat-trapping atmospheric emissions.

Oceans typically absorb about 31 percent of human-made carbon, but according to a New Scientist article, the oceans absorbed less carbon in 2024 than they did in 2023. Forests and land typically absorb around a third of anthropogenic CO2, however, the preliminary findings of a recent study (Ke et al, 2024) indicate that land-based carbon sinks are not sequestering carbon the way they once used to. A NOAA report card details how Arctic CO2 sinks are now emitting more carbon than they are absorbing.  

Environmental degradation and habitat loss are causing wildlife to disappear at an alarming rate. According to the WWF, we have lost almost 73 percent of species over the last 50 years and one out of every three species is currently endangered because of human activities.

Social deterioration: Division, rising authoritarianism, and waning appetite for sustainability

Resistance to change and increasing inequality empowered the far right and contributed to the rise of authoritarianism, including the electoral victory of Donald Trump. Fueled by social media, practical considerations, and facts were eclipsed by outlandish conspiracy theories and the passionate zealotry of anti-immigrant nativist agendas.  

The right’s culture wars and their efforts to sew division and exacerbate polarization are harbingers of environmental ruin. They used disinformation to shift political tides and they struck a major blow to corporate sustainability in 2024 by deriding ESG and DEI, derisively referring to any sort of humanism as “woke capitalism“. 

While some of the heaviest-emitting industries quietly adopted lower-carbon technologies, such as electric arc furnaces, most corporations backed away from sustainability, ESG, and DEI last year.  

Although the business case for sustainability has never been stronger, CEOs are “greenhushing” for fear of reprisals that could affect their bottom line.

Banks also abandoned sustainability last year.  Green laundering, the practice of covertly lending money to environmentally destructive industries, increased in 2024. Lending institutions, and investment banks including high-profile members like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan bowed to conservative pressure and walked away from climate coalitions. These banks abandoned the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), which aligns bank lending and investment activities with global efforts to combat climate change.

Last year was the first year that sustainability retreated since its inception in 1987.  As succinctly summarized in a Wall Street Journal article, sustainability is under siege and fighting for its life.  

Fossil fuel influence: Hijacking the narrative

Global efforts to address biophysical degradation are also floundering on other fronts due in large part to the influence of the fossil fuel industry. The economics driving ongoing fossil fuel dominance has proven to be an insurmountable obstacle that is thwarting progress.  

As the world’s leading purveyor of disinformation, the fossil fuel industry has seized control of public narratives and global decision-making bodies like the annual United Nations climate conference known as the Conference of the Parties (COP). The fossil fuel industry was responsible for the failure of COP 29 at the end of 2024. The dirty energy industry also undermined other environmental summits last year including conferences on biodiversity, plastic pollution, and desertification.

A CNN article described 2024 as the year that “climate progress screeched to a halt”. There was so much bad news that some authors suggested that last year will be remembered as the year the world “surrendered” to environmental degradation.

Positive Environmental News in 2024

People are working together to bolster nature’s resilience

Bad news should not prevent us from acknowledging successes. In 2024 we saw bold international initiatives as well as countless local efforts in support of nature. We must pay heed to these successes, if for no other reason than to stave off hopelessness, and apathy. We don’t have the luxury of giving up, future generations are counting on us to do everything in our power to change our trajectory and fight for a livable future.

The best way we can cultivate hope and combat our grief is through action. There is no time to wallow in despair, people want action, and they want it now.  According to a global 2024 UN poll, 80 percent of people want governments to do more to combat climate change.  

Millions around the world heeded the call to preserve the natural world in 2024. Both young and old are acting courageously against what may seem like overwhelming odds. We should be inspired by people like the Gen Z climate activist Tori Tsui who published a book on eco-anxiety. We should also be inspired by 77-year-old pensioner Gaie Delap who went to prison for her efforts to reign in the fossil fuel industry.

We should also be inspired by climate scientists whose research forms the basis of a cogent understanding of the issues. People like climatologist and senior lecturer Friederike Otto. Otto’s work in attribution science helped the public to understand the link between a warming world and extreme weather.

Lawyers also pushed back against environmental destruction last year. In 2024 Laura Clarke, the CEO of ClientEarth, used the courts to challenge misleading claims from companies that undermine climate action. Another legal hero of the environmental movement is Tessa Khan, an international climate change lawyer and the founder of Uplift, an organization that supports a fair transition away from oil and gas production in the UK. Khan championed ordinary people and held governments accountable.

Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh is an Associate Professor of Sustainability Law who is focused on the role of human rights in sustainable development and governance.  She works with policymakers and NGOs. She is also the legal counsel for the Pacific Island nation, Vanuatu and in 2024 she brought a landmark case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which laid the groundwork for the creation of a framework of legal accountability for climate action.

It is not just scientists and lawyers who are leading the way, millions of regular people came together in 2024 to advocate and contribute to projects that conserve, restore, and protect the natural world.  This is about people like Teresa Vicente, 61, who won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2024 for leading a grassroots campaign to save Spain’s Mar Menor lagoon from ecological collapse.

People working together is the key and in 2024 we saw coordinated efforts between multiple stakeholders at every level. We continued to see global participation at environmentally themed multilateral conferences, and while the outcomes fell short, there were some exceptions. The world’s first official mangrove summit took place in 2024, and more than 400 delegates from 82 countries agreed to a conservation and restoration plan.  

At COP 16, the 2024 edition of the annual biodiversity conference, 23,000 pre-registered delegates from around the world managed to agree on a wide range of issues. At COP 29, fifty-five thousand people attended and delegates from every nation on Earth agreed on a climate finance package and a carbon trading scheme. The fact that any sort of agreement could be reached was a victory for multilateralism.

Europe’s nature restoration activities ran the gamut from continent-wide initiatives to local efforts. A crowdfunding campaign in Wales brought people together to support rewilding projects and Scotland is working with a broad coalition of partners to become the world’s first ‘rewilding nation’.

Organizations are stepping up to defend nature in the US as well. In 2024, the Nature Conservancy purchased and protected over 8000 acres of Alabama’s wetlands, sometimes described as “America’s Amazon”. A sustained coordinated multi-level conservation effort in California, helped water levels in Lake Mead to rise by 16 feet (4.8 meters), adding 1.2 million acre-feet of water last year.

Ordinary people are also coming together and organizing to meet the challenges of our times.  Many small-scale actions had a big impact in 2024. A community group in Zambia brought the Nsongwe River back from the brink through its restoration efforts. Community-based mangrove restoration projects in the US, Mexico, Indonesia, Guinea Bissau, and Kenya improved coastal resilience while combating climate change, biodiversity loss, and food insecurity.

Community activists in Mexico City, led by Arturo Hernández launched El Ejercito de Arboles (The Tree Army) to protect and improve the city’s urban forest. In South America, young Peruvians came together in the world’s highest treehouse classroom to learn how they can defend their rainforest.  

Thousands of Swiss grandmothers organized to fight and win a landmark climate case in Europe. In a historic decision, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled the Swiss government is not doing enough to address climate change.

Nature the consummate provider: New discoveries in 2024

We discovered more of nature’s bounty in 2024. This includes a large assortment of serendipitous finds like an underground ocean three times the size of all the oceans on the surface of the Earth combined. Located about 700 kilometers below the Earth’s surface, this underground ocean consists of water in the crystalline structure of a blue mineral called ringwoodite.

There was also a far more accessible body of water discovered last year. Beneath the Iblei Mountains in Sicily, a 17 billion cubic meter freshwater reserve was discovered that could address the crushing drought that has decimated agriculture on the Mediterranean island.

Researchers also discovered massive geothermal energy sources in Croatia and below the ice in Antarctica. The largest known coral was discovered last year near the Solomon Islands in Melanesia and a study was published that shows how we can reverse the damage done to coral reefs.

The California Academy of Sciences announced that it had discovered 138 new animal, plant, and fungi species in 2024, ranging from a South African pygmy pipehorse to an Oaxacan dahlia. The Greater Mekong region yielded 234 new species, while 27 new species were discovered in Peru’s Alto Mayo landscape including four new mammals and a blob-headed fish.

More than 100 new species were discovered deep in the ocean on an unexplored underwater mountain off Chile’s coast and 4 new species of octopus were discovered off the coast of Costa Rica.

New species of bees were discovered across the US and 2 new mammal species were found in India this year, including the world’s smallest otter. Some of the more interesting finds include a giant anaconda, a vampire hedgehog, a dwarf squirrel, and a tiger cat.

Many species of flora were also discovered including a new tree species (Millettia sacleuxii) in Nguru Mountains of eastern Tanzania and a lipstick vine species (Aeschynanthus pentatrichomatus) in the Philippines. Some of these discoveries have potentially groundbreaking implications for the planet. One such example is a strain of cyanobacteria alga that could revolutionize carbon capture technologies and make manufacturing more sustainable.

Scientists estimate that we have documented 8.7 million species which is at most 20 percent of all species on Earth. That means that there are 35 million species that have yet to be discovered.  It is becoming increasingly apparent that species, both known and unknown are at risk.

Nature is resilient but it needs our help

Nature proved to be remarkably resilient in 2024. After a historic worst-ever drought, rains brought relief to Kenya, with wildlife and ecosystems making a full recovery.  

In a Forbes interview, Svitlana Grynchuk, Ukraine’s minister for environmental protection, emphasized the resilience of nature, while acknowledging the fundamental importance of human efforts. She recalled the devastation caused by Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in 2023 and the rejuvenation of the wetlands that followed in 2024.  “Even in the darkest times, nature recovers,” Grynchuk said, but in the face of human destruction, nature needs our help, which is why Ukrainians are planting trees in shell craters and putting beehives in mined fields.

While the planet is remarkably resilient, human demands far exceed the Earth’s carrying capacity, so, humans have an indispensable role to play both in radically reducing these demands and in repairing the harm we have done.

This is a human story

The state of our world makes this a fundamentally human story. Not just because humans are the cause of the myriad crises we face, but because we are the Earth’s last best hope to preserve, protect and restore nature.

Humans can benefit the natural world rather than destroy it. This is the premise of a book titled, Nature’s Ghosts: The World We Lost and How to Bring It Back. Written by Finnish conservationist and journalist Sophie Yeo and published in 2024, the book looks at the ways humans have historically related to nature. While our harmful impacts get a lot of warranted attention, Yeo exposes the myth of nature untouched by humans and she explores the ways that humans can have a positive impact on the natural world. Yeo explains that for thousands of years, humans have been a “keystone species” that helped to maintain a healthy ecosystem balance.

Despite our destructive history, many people are getting serious about changing our perilous trajectory by supporting restoration and rewilding. In her book Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer reviewed research that showed how nature can benefit from Indigenous methods of harvesting.

Global environmental governance

Nature-based government policies  

The number of nature-based policy announcements from governments around the world doubled in 2024, according to a study by the Inevitable Policy Response forecasting group. The report looked at policies aimed at addressing deforestation and food waste, as well as restoring ecosystems, lowering agricultural emissions, and nature-based climate solutions (NCS).

At the 2024 edition of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, climate change policy was at the top of the agenda. According to an analysis by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), effective climate policy pays dividends. The 2024 IMF report estimated that government policies that increase carbon prices and energy efficiency, as well as facilitate permitting for renewables, could improve energy security by 8 percent by 2030.

According to the Environmental Performance Indicator (EPI), the countries with the best environmental policies in 2024 were Estonia, Luxembourg, Germany, Finland, United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Switzerland and Denmark. The UK’s new Labour government appointed a Special Representative for Nature who is charged with halting environmental collapse and putting nature at the heart of domestic and foreign policy.

Denmark, which is the only country to endorse the 90 percent emissions reduction target, enlisted 10 other countries, including Germany, France, and Spain, to pursue more ambitious targets. Poland’s new government joined the EU in its efforts to combat climate change and support the ambitious, new 2040 emissions reduction target that accelerates the phase-out of new coal plants. Ireland led the world on climate finance with its pledge to provide €225 million per year to poorer nations by 2025.

Other countries also prioritized environmental policies in 2024. This includes Mexico where newly elected Claudia Sheinbaum became the first climate scientist to be elected president of a country. In addition to contributing to two major UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, Sheinbaum was mayor of Mexico City, where she advanced green municipal policies. Her 2024 environmental agenda as President of Mexico included the goal of deriving 45 percent of Mexico’s energy requirements from clean sources by 2030. Brazil also announced ambitious climate targets ahead of COP 29.

Environmental laws and regulations  

In the US, Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) doubled the country’s emission reduction rate. According to figures released in 2024, the IRA’s investments in clean energy and transportation increased emissions reduction by a record-breaking 40 percent between 2022 and 2023. The IRA also provided US national parks – home to many conservation and restoration projects – with $700 million to fight climate change. The Biden Administration signed off on billions of dollars for clean energy projects, including approving major offshore wind projects and $7 billion in rooftop solar grants for residential projects in low- and middle-income communities.

Buoyed by a 2024 European Commission report that revealed a tenfold ROI on environmental investments, the EU advanced a raft of environmentally themed laws and regulations. In an important first step towards making environmental destruction illegal, the EU began the process of criminalizing ecocide. This makes habitat destruction, illegal logging, and pollution a crime that could see CEOs sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.

In 2024, the EU approved the Nature Restoration Law, the first-ever legislation that could rehabilitate Europe’s ecosystems and bring back biodiversity. The goal is to rejuvenate at least 20 percent of the EU’s terrestrial and marine environments by 2030, and all European ecosystems by 2050. The EU’s new Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation came into force in 2024 to improve the repairability, recyclability, and circularity of products.

The European Parliament (EP) passed a new rule that will further curtail air pollution bringing it into line with the World Health Organization (WHO) air quality standards. This is part of a bid to reach zero pollution by 2050. EU countries adopted the first-ever rules to measure, report, and verify methane emissions in the energy sector.

EP also adopted a new packaging regulation designed to reduce waste and they banned misleading greenwashing claims in labeling, and ads. The EP’s environment committee backed a proposal to restore the continent’s soils.

The UK’s new Labour government reduced onshore wind farm restrictions and passed legislation that supports renewable energy. Subsidies tripled the installations of solar panels in the UK and the Labour government’s new Energy Independence Act Warm Homes Plan, will see an additional investment of £6.6 billion over the next five years that will provide insulation, solar panels, batteries, and low-carbon heating for five million homes.

England launched an environmental policy that mandates the creation of wildlife habitats. The rule requires that all new developments provide a 10 percent net gain in biodiversity and that it is maintained for at least 30 years. This includes new homes, roads, railways, and solar farms.

A new Welsh law designed to reduce waste sent to landfills requires that businesses, charities, and the public sector sort and recycle their waste, including compost. France also made composting organic waste mandatory.

To help address the pollution generated by fast fashion, France proposed banning advertising and imposing penalties on low-cost clothing.  Canada advanced draft legislation that will require all new cars to be zero-emission by 2035, with interim goals of at least 20 percent by 2026 and 60 percent by 2030.

Denmark announced it was introducing a green tax on flights from 2025 to help fund the transition to sustainable aviation fuel by 2030. Greece became the first country in Europe to ban bottom trawling in all its marine protected areas (MPAs).

Legal protections for nature

A handful of new protected areas were announced in 2024. Mexico announced 20 new protected areas across 12 states and two coastal areas, spanning roughly 5.7 million acres. Spain introduced seven new MPAs, increasing their protected waters from 12 percent to 21 percent. Portugal announced a new MPA in the North Atlantic around the Azores. At 111,000 square miles (287,000 sq km) this MPA will be the largest in the region, providing protections for 28 species of marine mammals and 560 species of fish.  

Palau, Chile, the Maldives, and the EU ratified the High Seas Treaty to protect international waters. This is the world’s first international treaty to mandate the conservation and management of marine life in areas beyond national jurisdictions.

Australia designated a new national park in 2024. Cuttaburra National Park in New South Wales is home to 158 native species including 12 that are threatened or endangered.  

In addition to protected status, national governments are also providing funding. In 2024 Greece announced the creation of two large marine parks as part of a €780 million program to protect biodiversity and marine ecosystems. Six European countries (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, and the UK) pledged €330 million to protect biodiversity.

Legal personhood status

Legal personhood status confers rights, protections, privileges, and responsibilities. In previous years Costa Rica conferred personhood on bees. In Panama, they conferred personhood on leatherback turtles. In Ecuador, nature has been granted rights, and both New Zealand and Bangladesh have provided personhood status to rivers.

Last year rivers, mountains, waves, and whales were given legal personhood status.  In New Zealand, the peaks of Egmont National Park – renamed Te Papakura o Taranaki – were provided legal person status, known as Te Kāhui Tupua. The coastal city of Linhares in Brazil, recognized ocean waves as living beings, granting them the right to existence, regeneration, and restoration. A Pacific Indigenous leaders treaty recognized both whales and dolphins as “legal persons”. According to a 2024 report, providing legal person status benefits entire ecosystems.

The courts and the law

Courts in Ecuador ruled that the rights of the Machángara River that runs through the capital, Quito were being violated by pollution. This is but one of several important court cases and legal rulings that pushed back against environmental destruction in 2024.

Historic hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague were held to determine who is legally responsible for the worsening climate crisis. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the climate crisis is an existential threat and called on leaders to act immediately to protect people from harm by radically reducing emissions.

The UN court on maritime law known as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), found that anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be considered a marine pollutant. It said countries have a legal obligation to implement measures mitigating their effect on oceans.

Environmental groups won a big victory in 2024 when the courts ruled in favor of preventing drilling for offshore gas in Italy’s Po Delta, a UNESCO-designated biosphere reserve. Many similar cases are currently pending. Uplift and Greenpeace filed separate legal challenges to the UK’s decision to allow energy companies Equinor and Ithaca Energy to develop massive untapped oil and gas fields in the North Atlantic, saying regulators “unlawfully ignored” the emissions associated with the projects.

California filed a lawsuit against five big oil and gas companies (Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhilips, and BP) as well as the American Petroleum Institute for misleading the public about climate change and for engaging in harmful environmental practices despite knowing for decades that the burning of fossil fuels contributes to climate change. Similarly, Oregon’s largest county sued the state’s biggest gas company for lies designed to make people doubt the veracity of climate science.

In the US, rulings in Montana and Hawaii are expected to spawn a raft of similar lawsuits. The Montana Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling and refused to capitulate to the will of Republican efforts to eliminate environmental oversight. The original judgment ruled that the failure to account for GHG emissions in fossil fuel permits violated the plaintiff’s constitutional right to a clean environment.

The lawsuit argued for the unconstitutionality of a Montana state law that banned the consideration of climate concerns in determining energy policy. The 6 to 1 ruling stated that the “plaintiffs showed at trial – without dispute – that climate change is harming Montana’s environmental life support system now and with increasing severity for the foreseeable future” adding these plaintiffs have a “fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment”. 

In Hawaii, young climate activists achieved a landmark victory in a suit that accused the state of breaching the constitution by maintaining a transportation system that negatively impacted the climate, thereby violating their right to a clean and healthy environment. Similar lawsuits are ongoing in the US (eg Utah and Alaska) as well as in countries like Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Colombia, and Uganda. In India, a landmark decision by the Supreme Court ruled that a clean environment, including protections against climate change, is part of the right to life.

The not-for-profit organisation ClientEarth, won two landmark cases in 2024.  First, they prevented Polish companies from marketing coal as ‘eco’. They also challenged KLM for greenwashing and BlackRock for incorrectly listing some of its investment funds, including those connected to the fossil fuel industry, as sustainable.

Other polluters are also being sued. Los Angeles County sued PepsiCo and Coca-Cola for intentionally deceiving consumers about the recyclability of their bottles.

Biodiversity Protections

Species Conservation and Reintroduction

In 2024 there were dozens of initiatives in support of a wide range of flora and fauna. A 2024 study by Langhamme et al, that showed conservation can slow and even reverse biodiversity loss.

Conservation efforts have succeeded in increasing China’s wild panda populations and stopping the decline of elephants in South Africa. Here is a summary of some other species conservation efforts from 2024:

• In Kazakhstan, the saiga antelope rebounded from near extinction thanks to conservation efforts.

• After going extinct two centuries ago, the Prague Zoo’s captive breeding program has successfully returned Wild Przewalski’s horses to Kazakhstan’s Golden Steppe in Central Asia.  

• Brisbane and the University of Queensland are working together to reintroduce and monitor koalas in Brisbane brushlands.

• Wolves were discovered by Nevada’s Department for Wildlife in Elko County for the first time in 8 years.

• A study published in 2024 indicates that blue whales returned to Antarctica after being hunted to near extinction.

• Researchers reported that the numbers of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales are increasing.

• After a century, Sei whales returned to their ancestral home in the waters off Argentina.

• Tiger populations are steadily recovering in Thailand due to habitat restoration and anti-poaching efforts.

• Thanks to successful Spanish conservation efforts, the Iberian lynx is now a recovering species and is no longer on the verge of extinction.

• Conservation corridors are being created in Latin America that are helping secure the future of cats (jaguars, pumas, ocelots, oncilla, and Garlepp’s pampas cat) as well as other species.

• In 2024, conservationists put together a plan that includes captive breeding, to save the critically endangered Munoa’s Pampas cat.

• The critically endangered Scottish wildcat, the only native member of the cat family still found in the wild in Britain, is reproducing successfully in the UK’s Cairngorms National Park buoying hopes that they can avoid extinction.

• In 2024, plans were presented to introduce a herd of wild bulls in the Scottish Highlands that will help restore biodiversity, store carbon, and enhance eco-tourism.

• In response to declining populations in the UK, turtle doves were the focus of successful conservation efforts in 2024 that banned hunting and increased habitats and food sources.

• There were signs that the grey seal is recovering in the UK including the establishment of the first colony in Suffolk, at Orford Ness.

• For the first time in 150 years, pine martens have been reintroduced to the woods of Dartmoor south-west England.

• The first baby beaver in more than four centuries was born in Northumberland.

• King Charles III has bestowed a royal title on an endangered golden goat breed.

• After an absence of more than two centuries, conservation efforts could soon see the white-tailed eagle, the UK’s largest bird of prey, flying through the skies over Exmoor National Park.

• Protected green and loggerhead turtles are making a big comeback on the beaches of two British military bases in Cyprus.

• Thanks to conservation efforts, the vulnerable olive ridley turtle laid a record number of eggs on Bangladesh’s beaches in 2024.

• Rewilding in Madagascar’s spiny forest is part of an effort to save the critically endangered radiated tortoises.

• A conservation effort has reintroduced native species of finches linked to Darwin’s theory of evolution in the Galapagos Islands.

• Endangered storm petrels have returned to French Polynesia for the first time in over 100 years thanks to conservation efforts.

• Oregon Zoo hatched, raised, and released seven critically endangered California condors into the wild.

• New Zealand has opened a hospital specifically to treat kiwi birds.

• To protect the endangered malleefowl, the Australia Nature Foundation purchased an old cattle farm in South Australia.

• The distinctive northern bald ibis bird has been brought back from the brink of extinction in Europe.

• Wilkins’ Bunting where saved from extinction in 2024. These rare birds found only on the remote Island of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic Ocean were saved with the help of a wasp that decreased the population of an invasive insect that decimated the fruit that Buntings feed on.

• The near-extinct Sombrero ground lizard, endemic to a tiny Caribbean Island near Anguilla, made a comeback in 2024.

• The number of critically endangered Siamese crocodiles found only in the remote Cardamom Mountains of Cambodia, is on the increase. 

• In 2024, Washington joined California and Hawaii in banning octopus farming.

• Among the more important, yet underreported stories in 2024, is the increase in beekeeping, even in urban centers, that is helping to support this critical pollinator as their numbers decline in the wild.  

Reforestation

According to reports released in 2024, the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped 50 percent in 2023 compared to the year before, this is the lowest recorded deforestation rate in many years. In the Congo Basin, year over year deforestation rates fell by 74 percent.

Approximately 158 million trees are planted every month, 5 million each day, or 7 thousand are planted every minute. The world plans to plant at least 1 trillion trees by 2030.  As part of the 2 Billion Trees (2BT) program, the Government of Canada, the provinces and territories, Indigenous communities, and municipalities committed to planting 716 million trees in 2024, which is almost three times the previous year’s total.  More than 280 million trees were planted in British Columbia (BC) forests alone last year.

In 2024, the UN celebrated the planting of 350 million trees around the world through its regenerative agroforestry nonprofit and the United Nations World Restoration Flagship Trees for the Future (TREES).  

It is not just governments and the UN; NGOs are also playing a leadership role. In 2024, One Tree announced that it had planted 100 million trees. The Caring Family Foundation planted two million trees in the Amazon in 2024.

These tree-planting initiatives can rejuvenate entire ecosystems. In Africa, Trees for the Future is working on replacing degraded, barren, monocultures with forests.  In the UK, tree planting operations got underway that will see a total of 100,000 trees planted in South Downs and another 100,000 trees in Devon’s endangered temperate rainforest.

Efforts are also ongoing at the municipal level.  Last year the city of Paris announced plans to remove 60,000 parking spaces by 2030 and replace them with trees and green spaces. Through an initiative titled, “Neighbourhood In Bloom,” Antwerp is greening their city by giving away trees to plant in gardens and unpaved spaces.

Conservation and restoration of habitats and ecosystems

All around the world, projects conserved, restored, and protected habitats and ecosystems in 2024. Restoring native flora is an important part of these efforts. Scotland’s native mountain trees like birch and the arctic-alpine willows made a comeback after being pushed to near extinction. Fen orchids (Liparis loeselii) in the Norfolk Broads, also came back from the brink of extinction in 2024. Other conservation successes in the UK included improving soil quality through inversion and restoring rivers through an approach that allows waters to move naturally.

In 2024 creative solutions produced impressive results. In California, sea otters curtailed a crab population that was wreaking havoc on a marshland. This enabled these marshlands to keep providing a wealth of ecological benefits, such as habitat for wildlife, flood protection, and water purification.

Creative approaches to finance are also benefiting conservation efforts. For example, Hawaii announced that tourists will be asked to pay a $25 climate fee that will be used to fund nature restoration, protect beaches, and prevent wildfires.

Here are a few additional noteworthy additions to the list of important conservation projects in 2024:

• At Climate Week NYC, eleven African nations launched the $500 million Miombo Restoration Alliance initiative to restore biodiversity, combat land degradation, and support sustainable livelihoods.

• In a bid to support biodiversity restoration and mitigate climate change, Triodos Bank committed to investing at least $500 million in natural-based solutions by the end of the century.

• Conservationists in Massachusetts are transforming retired cranberry farms into wetlands to fight climate change, support biodiversity, and protect water supplies.

• Thanks to meticulous conservation and restoration efforts, butterflies, including the large blue (Phengaris arion), declared extinct in 1979 are now doing well in the UK.

Indigenous-led conservation and protection

Indigenous people played a salient role in nature conservation in 2024. While nations around the world are struggling to protect 30 percent of the land and sea, Indigenous people have protected an average of 60 percent of the landscapes they oversee.  At least one study, suggests Indigenous-managed lands are even more beneficial to wildlife than protected areas.  

In 2024 the Canadian province of BC formally recognized the Haida nation’s oversight of a chain of 200 coastal islands. First Nations are also leading efforts to protect Canada’s newly discovered and only living coral reef off the coast of BC.  

There are 1,000 “Indigenous Guardians” across Canada who are stewarding their traditional lands and waters and redefining conservation. Canada’s Indigenous-led conservation efforts in 2024 include the Qikiqtani Inuit Association working to establish a 108,000 sq km (42,000 sq miles) national marine conservation area in Arctic waters offshore of Nunavut and the Sayisi Dene First Nation in northern Manitoba aiming to protect the entirety of the 50,000sq km (19,300sq miles) Seal River watershed.

Indigenous-led conservation and restoration efforts are also playing a leading role around the world. The Eastern Kuku Yalani, First Nations tribe in North Queensland is working on protecting the 180-million-year-old Daintree Rainforest, the oldest surviving tropical rainforest in the world.

In 2024 a coalition of Indigenous tribes succeeded in returning salmon to the Klamath River basin in Oregon and the Yurok tribe returned condors to the skies in California.  In one of the most noteworthy conservation efforts in 2024, Indigenous activists in Columbia helped to decrease deforestation by 36 percent.

Clean energy & GHG reduction

Some industry experts were optimistic about the prospects of a timely energy transition. Jarand Rystad is a physicist, former McKinsey & Company partner, and founder of Oslo-based Rystad Energy, an independent research and energy intelligence company. According to comments made by Rystad in 2024, technologies like solar, wind, batteries, geothermal, and electric vehicles, give us reason to believe that we will curtail emissions and contain climate change.

Rystad suggests we are on the cusp of peak fossil fuels and his analysis indicates that we can mitigate 33 gigatons (GT) of emissions with the help of solar (11 GT), wind, batteries, electric vehicles, and CCUS (5.5 GT each).

The growth of renewable energy

Economics is driving the prodigious growth of renewable energy.  According to a 2024 World Economic Forum (WEF) article, the world’s renewable energy capacity grew almost 50 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year and even faster growth is projected over the next five years.  

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said global renewable energy capacity is growing faster every year. The IEA cited the rapid growth of solar in China as well as record growth in Europe, the United States, and Brazil.

A 2024 Ember report indicated that the world gets almost one-third of its electricity from renewable power sources. Last year the IEA, indicated we are on track to see renewables meet half of electricity demand by 2030 which is just shy of the increases called for by the UN.

In 2024 many local cooperatives were supplying renewable energy. Nigerian green energy entrepreneur Yetunde Fadeyi started Renewable Energy and Environmental Sustainability (REES), a non-profit dedicated to climate advocacy and providing clean energy to poor communities in rural Nigeria. Belgium’s energy minister Tinne Van der Straeten is also supporting local renewable energy cooperatives.

Here are 11 additional renewable energy success stories from 2024:

• A 2024 Eurostat report indicated that renewable energy was the leading source of electricity in the EU in 2023 accounting for 44.7 percent of all electricity production.

• According to an analysis from Carbon Brief, the UK’s electricity was the cleanest it has ever been in 2024

• The BBC reported that Great Britain derived 56 percent of its energy from renewables last year.

• In 2024 America produced more than three times as much power from renewable sources than it did a decade ago.

• India added 35 gigawatts of renewable capacity in 2024.

• Renewables are the largest single energy source in India accounting for over 70 percent of newly added power generation.

• A 2024 report reveals that Germany’s emissions fell by a record 10.1 percent in 2023 thanks in large part to its investment in renewables.

• Albania, Bhutan, Ethiopia, Iceland, Nepal, Paraguay, and the Democratic Republic of Congo generate all their electricity from renewables.

• In 2024, renewables met more than 90 percent of Portugal’s electricity needs.

• The state of California relied entirely on clean power for a record 98 days in the first half of 2024.

• Compared to the same period in 2023 solar output in California is up 31 percent, and wind power is up 8 percent.

Solar energy

The speed at which solar power has grown is staggering. As of 2024, global solar power was more than six times bigger than it was in 2015. Solar power increased to 20 percent of the global power mix in 2024 compared to 16 percent in 2023.

Last year was another good year for solar energy. This includes a wide range of initiatives from women increasing access to solar electricity in rural Nigeria to the Pope’s announcement that he is building a new solar plant to power Vatican City.

Chinese solar is driving most of the growth in the renewable energy space. The Mengxi Lanhai Solar Plant went online in 2024. This is the largest single-site solar power project in China and the second largest in the world. We are also seeing steady solar growth in Europe. For the first time, solar energy (with some help from wind power) generated more of the EU’s electricity than fossil fuels in 2024.  

Hundreds of European historic buildings, like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, have been creatively retrofitted with solar panels. The British Library also installed the country’s largest solar heat installation. Valencia, Spain, the greenest city in Europe, began deploying thousands of solar panels in the city’s cemeteries in 2024.

There was also an uptick in home solar installations last year. SolarMente’s subscription solar gives Spaniards easy access to solar-powered electricity by eliminating upfront costs. Germans are also taking to plug-in solar systems, many of which are being installed on people’s balconies.  India, the third largest producer of solar power, is streamlining the approval process and providing massive subsidies as it looks to rooftop solar to provide ‘free electricity’ for up to 10 million homes.

There were also cooperative international projects like the Danish company that is building one of the world’s largest solar farms and energy storage facilities in the Arizona desert. Norway’s national football stadium installed the world’s largest vertical solar roof and Premier League Champions, Manchester City announced that it will install almost 11,000 solar panels on the roof of its training facility and the Joie Stadium.

Many innovative new solar designs were developed in 2024. This includes indoor solar cells that work in low light so they can harvest energy and a floating photovoltaic array.

Wind energy

Wind power more than doubled in the last decade and 2024 was another banner year. GWEC’s 2024 Global Wind Report found that 2023 set a record for new wind projects, representing an increase of 50 percent compared to 2022. In the US, wind energy broke a record exceeding coal-fired power generation.

The World’s largest offshore wind farm located in the North Sea achieved full capacity in 2024. Last year also saw the launch of some major wind facilities including a large-scale project off the coast of Massachusetts and five new wind projects in Oman. Portugal announced the construction of its largest wind farm.

Geothermal energy

While solar and wind, account for most renewable projects, there are also signs that we are beginning to wake up to the yet unrealized potential of geothermal. A California utility announced plans to support the development of the largest geothermal power project in the US.  

In 2024 Finland completed its first geothermal heating plant in Vantaa and discovered a massive new source of geothermal energy that could provide huge quantities of renewable power. Other discoveries last year included a geothermal lake in Croatia and a boiling source of geothermal energy below the ice in Antarctica.

Hydrogen energy

Last year researchers discovered enough subterranean hydrogen to power the earth for centuries. A 2024 study (Ellis and Gelman, 2024), estimated the amount of hydrogen in underground reservoirs and rocks to be 6.2 trillion tonnes (5.6 trillion metric tonnes).

Two of the largest-ever hydrogen deposits were discovered last year. The first was in north-east France 1000 metres below the ground and the other was in an Albanian chromium mine.

Until now hydrogen applications have been largely speculative, but in 2024 we began to see the potential of this energy source. Last year, the UK government announced that it is financing 11 new green hydrogen projects which are among the first commercial-scale projects in the world.

Hydrogen-powered furnaces are on the increase. According to a 2024 report, the hydrogen furnace market is expected to almost double from 1.28 billion in 2023 to 2.43 billion by 2032.

There is also growing interest in hydrogen as a power source for transportation and heating. The first hydrogen-powered passenger ferry entered service in 2024 and Antonio Meucci in Carpi became the first public high school to heat with a hydrogen boiler.

Nuclear energy

After decades of public reticence, there is a growing understanding that nuclear power is both clean and safe. With large power outputs and a footprint that is much smaller than fossil fuels, it is increasingly appreciated as the perfect complement to renewable energy.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) indicated that nuclear power continued to expand in 2024, making it the fourth successive year it has done so. Russia and China are both expanding their already significant nuclear energy capacity.

Late last year the US government’s General Services Administration (GSA) announced a major nuclear energy purchase and a 2024 survey shows a steady and growing demand for nuclear power in the US.

Bangladesh, Egypt, and Turkey are all constructing their first nuclear power plants, and in total about 30 nations are considering, planning, or starting nuclear power programs in 2024. Another 20 countries have at some point expressed an interest in harnessing atomic power.  

In 2024, even Argentina made bold nuclear energy moves. Argentinian President Milei announced a plan to expand his country’s nuclear energy capacity, including leveraging the country’s uranium reserves and building small modular reactors (SMRs).

Heat pumps

Heat pumps are highly efficient and work well with renewable energy. According to a new report from UK climate action charity Possible, community wind turbines and heat pumps work well together to address poverty and climate change by slashing both emissions and energy bills.

The UK installed a record number of heat pumps in 2024, including a century-old block of buildings in London, and this fueled a commensurate increase in the number of jobs for installers.  A pilot project by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is testing a new window-mounted heat pump that will cut costs and emissions. A Swedish company is offering an accessible and sustainable heat pump on a subscription basis that does away with upfront costs.

Helsinki Finland is building the world’s largest heat pump to decarbonize the city’s heating system. The heat pump can operate in temperatures as low as -20C and will be powered by electricity from renewable sources.

Energy storage

The growth of energy storage

In 2024 it became increasingly clear that energy storage technologies are essential for a stable clean energy supply. Energy storage addresses the intermittency issue associated with renewable energy variability by balancing supply and demand. Energy storage has been described as “clean energy’s next trillion-dollar business”

There is a wide range of energy storage technologies, including batteries, thermal storage, mechanical storage, pumped hydro, and hydrogen. Batteries have received the most attention due to their portability.

Battery costs have been steadily declining and a 2024 report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), determined they have fallen 90 percent in under a decade and a half. In the last decade, the US has increased its battery storage capabilities 100 times.  While this is mostly commercial, residential battery uptake is also increasing. A report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory indicates that a growing number of Americans are installing a battery alongside their new rooftop solar system. In California alone, battery capacity more than doubled in 2024.

There were a few projects that stood out last year. Hawaii replaced its last coal plant with a massive battery storage facility. Sweden started operating the largest energy storage complex in the country and the biggest project using traditional batteries for grid storage came online in Texas.

Breakthroughs in battery technologies

There were some potentially game-changing technological breakthroughs in 2024. Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology have developed a strong, lightweight battery made from load-bearing carbon fiber that unlocks massless energy storage. It could revolutionize electric vehicles, e-bikes, satellites, and laptops. However, the most exciting application of this technology may be air travel. That is because a light and small structural battery overcomes the salient limitation to the electrification of flight. 

Researchers in battery technology looked at replacements for commonly used, expensive, and scarce resources like lithium, and cobalt. This includes efforts to replace lithium with potassium, sodium, or iron.

The University of Waterloo developed a magnesium battery, while researchers at Japan’s Yokohama National University developed a manganese replacement for nickel and cobalt-based batteries.

A review paper published in 2024, indicated that next-generation battery performance and safety can be improved with batteries that rely on materials such as oxides, sulfides, hydroborates, antiperovskites, and halides.

Here are six additional battery-related success stories from 2024:

• Researchers at Australia’s Monash University used a common antiseptic to develop a unique fast charging battery that could power futuristic aircraft.

• A UK startup created a battery that draws on the electrons produced by bacteria in soil to provide inexpensive clean energy to farms in Europe.

• Researchers based at the Polytechnic University of Catalunya (UPC) created a hybrid device that works as a solar battery that is less prone to overheating.

• German company Heat Storage Berlin has refined a technique for storing surplus renewable energy as heat.

• In New Zealand, electric vehicles took to the road powered by batteries made with discarded woodchips through a process called thermo-catalytic graphitisation.

• There were also cooperative international projects like the one by Scottish company Gravitricity that created a gravity battery out of a disused mine in the remote Finnish community of Pyhäjärvi.

Transportation

Electric vehicles

The global adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) continued in 2024. According to auto industry analysts at S&P Global Mobility, there were 11.6 million EVs sold last year. A 2024 analysis, predicted a 30 percent increase in the EV market in 2025.

China is the undisputed EV leader accounting for the lion’s share of the uptake. There were more than 20 million EVs on Chinese roads at the start of 2024 and 4.25 million of the country’s new car sales were electric or hybrids last year.

There were at least 3.3 million EVs on American roads at the start of 2024, representing a 25-fold increase from 2014. In 2024 a total of 1.3 million EVs were sold in the US.

There were at least 11.8 million EVs on European roads at the start of 2024. A total of 1.7 million EVs were sold in Europe last year.  While some European countries saw modest growth in EV sales, Greece, Cyprus, Ireland and Czechia saw double or even triple-digit growth. With EVs representing 82 percent of all the new cars bought in Norway last year, the country now has more EVs on the roads than combustion engine vehicles.  

Charging infrastructure continued to grow last year. As of July 2024, there were 3.6 million EV charge points in China. There are over 630,000 publicly available EV chargers in Europe and more than 176,000 electric vehicle charging stations in the US.

Public transportation

Decreasing emissions by increasing access to public transportation was a common theme in 2024. This is particularly true in Europe. In Belgium, France, and Austria employers pay the cost of their employee’s public transport. In Montpellier, France, free public transport has increased public use by 20 percent. Portugal announced a €20 unlimited rail pass and Spain announced plans to ban short-haul domestic flights.

Under a 2024 Danish program, tourists who do not use cars or taxis are being rewarded with museum passes, more ski time, and free coffee. Cooperative international efforts include a Swiss and German program that is sending trams to Ukraine to help the embattled country decarbonize and improve its public transport.

Other forms of transportation were also targeted last year including some of the most carbon-intensive. Ports in the EU installed innovative infrastructure that will allow ships to switch from engines to onshore power sources thereby reducing GHG emissions.

One of the most interesting transportation-related innovations discussed in 2024 was a 500 km electric conveyor belt in Japan. This novel form of transportation, known as the “Autoflow-Road”, could slash transport emissions by eliminating the need for 25,000 trucks.

Cycling

To encourage cycling, governments expanded the number of bike lane networks in 2024. More bike lanes were added across the US last year led by the state of Minnesota and cities like Jackson Wyoming, Bloomington Indiana, and Aurora Illinois. The EU committed to increasing bicycle lanes, and bike parking facilities as well as improve safety for riders.

In 2024, Montreal, Canada, celebrated the doubling of its cycling network in the last ten years. Paris increased bicycle lanes as part of a sustainable transport initiative that encourages people to walk or cycle rather than drive a car.  A 2024 Institut Paris Region (IPR) report reveals that cycling is now more popular than driving in the center of Paris.  

The transition away from fossil fuels

The world is investing in the energy transition. Almost twice as much investment funding ($2 trillion) went towards clean technologies in 2024 compared to fossil fuels.  Last year the UN General Assembly agreed to a new pact reaffirming the global commitment to transition away from fossil fuels. Reports revealed declining fossil fuel use in some key markets.

A 2024 Eurostat report revealed that electricity from fossil fuels in the EU fell by 19.7 percent in 2023. For the first time, renewables generated more of the EU’s electricity than fossil fuels in 2024.

The UK, home of the industrial revolution and the first country to use coal for public power generation, closed its last plant in 2024, ending 142 years of coal-powered energy. A bit more than 3 decades ago, the UK was deriving 80 percent of its energy from coal, last year that number fell to zero making the island nation the first G7 country to abandon coal power. Also in 2024, Hawaii replaced its last coal plant with a massive battery storage facility.

China approved significantly fewer coal plants in 2024 compared to 2023 and early in 2024 India’s use of renewables pushed coal below the 50 percent mark for the first time since 1966. Last year the president of Mexico announced an ambitious energy transition agenda that includes closing oil refineries and turning the state-run oil and gas company into a provider of renewable electricity.

Some banks distanced themselves from fossil fuels in 2024. British bank Barclays, the second biggest financer of fossil fuels in Europe, announced that they will stop funding new oil and gas fields. The Commonwealth Bank (CBA), Australia’s largest lender, stopped financing fossil fuel companies that are not aligned with the Paris Agreement’s climate goals.

There was also government action that challenged fossil fuel dominance in 2024. The Massachusetts Senate passed a bill that incentivizes electric vehicles while decreasing reliance on natural gas. In Vancouver, British Columbia, the City Council voted against gas heating for new homes, and cities like Toronto banned fossil fuel advertising in 2024. At the end of last year, the Biden administration advanced a proposal that would see a 400 percent increase in fuel taxes for private jets.

Carbon reduction technologies

Efforts to capture or remove carbon went mainstream in 2024. Last year was the best year ever for technologies that capture carbon at source or from the ambient air.

Investors are increasingly appreciating the value of these multi-trillion-dollar opportunities. According to a 2024 report by Spherical Insights & Consulting, the global carbon capture market was valued at 2.98 billion in 2023.  The market is predicted to reach 25.3 billion by 2033 and $4 trillion by 2050. Removing carbon from the ambient air is projected to be a $1.2 trillion market by 2050.

Direct air capture projects

We saw increased interest in technological efforts that remove carbon from the ambient air in 2024. These technologies are aptly named carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and they are commonly referred to as direct air capture (DAC).

Last year was a momentous year for DAC. For the first time global capacity, including planned and announced projects, surpassed 1 million tons annually.  In 2024 new DAC plants were opened and others were expanded. Climeworks opened its massive new geothermal-powered facility in Iceland which can capture 36,000 tons of CO2 annually.

In 2024, construction began on the world’s largest DAC plant. The $1 billion venture is called the STRATOS project, and it is being built in West Texas by Occidental Petroleum. When completed in 2025 it will be capable of removing and storing 500,000 metric tons of CO2.

A multiparty collaboration that was announced in 2024 will see the construction of the world’s first wind-powered DAC plant in Texas.  The partnership between Netherland’s based Return Carbon and Verified Carbon, is called Project Concho. It will use equipment from Skytree Stratus to capture 500,000 tons of CO2 annually which will be stored underground.  

Direct air capture Innovation

Here are two noteworthy DAC innovations from 2024 that reduce energy consumption and costs. Chemists at UC Berkely have developed a covalent organic framework (COF-999) that can capture 44 times its weight in carbon. The hexagonal structure of the powder is made of carbon and nitrogen and held together by covalent bonds. Like other DAC technologies, amines are used to bond with carbon dioxide, but unlike other amines, COF-999 releases CO2 at much lower temperatures which translates to less energy. In a similar vein, researchers at Rice University have developed an electrochemical reactor that does not require the high temperatures traditionally associated with DAC processes (Zhang et al, 2024).

Carbon capture projects

Carbon capture, which removes carbon from flue gases at the point of production, also surged in 2024. After getting the green light from regulators last year, California is building its first carbon capture and storage plant.  It will capture CO2 from industrial sources and pump it into depleted oil reservoirs that can sequester up to 46 million tonnes of carbon. California Resources Corp (CRC) is constructing the facility at the Elk Hills Oil Field in the San Joaquin Valley, California.

Carbon capture Innovation

There were significant breakthroughs in carbon capture in 2024. One of the most interesting involves a partnership between the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences at Kyoto University and Taiwan University’s Department of Chemical Engineering. Together they developed a new membrane that is both efficient and adaptable (Han et al, 2024). What makes this revolutionary is the fact that the membrane is phase-transformable, meaning it shifts between liquid, glass, and crystalline states. This significantly reduces energy costs and produces clean energy in the process.

Government and private sector support of carbon removal

Technologies that remove carbon received unprecedented government support in 2024. The STRATOS project is among a raft of carbon removal initiatives that are benefiting from the IRA’s tax credits. The US Department of Energy announced $1.8 billion in new funding for DAC projects. Last year Canada announced a carbon removal procurement commitment of $10 million to offset government emissions. Carbon removal also benefited from the carbon trading rules agreed to at COP 29.

Partnerships between corporations and carbon removal firms also reached record levels in 2024. A slew of private investments made last year a record breaker. CDR firm Heirloom secured $150 million worth of funding while CarbonCapture Inc. raised $80 million in financing.

Corporate buyers lined up to procure long-term carbon removal purchasing agreements in 2024. Morgan Stanley signed a deal with Climeworks for 40,000 tons of CO2 removal and Google announced a landmark deal with startup Holocene to forward purchase 100,000 tons of CO2 removal.

Microsoft has committed to purchasing 500,000 metric tons worth of carbon credits from the STRATOS project and the software firm is also working with the Royal Bank of Canada to pre-purchase 10,000 tons of carbon removal credits from Deep Sky, with an option for an additional 1 million tons. According to CDR.fyi, in 2024, carbon removal credits exceeded 2.1 million tons sold for the first time.

Natural climate solutions

There were a host of natural climate solutions (NCS) in 2024 including many mangrove restoration efforts around the world and a rewilding project that reintroduced a herd of 170 European Bison in Romania’s Tarcu mountains. One of the most promising NCS discovered in 2024 is a strain of cyanobacteria dubbed “Chronkus” that could revolutionize carbon removal (Schubert et al, 2024).

“Nature and people are interconnected, and throughout history, humans have shaped natural environments,” the Nature Conservancy wrote, adding, “Natural climate solutions underscore this role that people play in positively stewarding ecosystems towards climate mitigation outcomes.”

Conclusion: People working together to build community and protect the environment

These are only a sampling of some of the environmental success stories from 2024. They are drops in the proverbial bucket, but taken together these actions give us a glimpse of what it would be like to live in harmony with nature.

Nature is resilient and nature provides, but we cannot keep overtaxing its capacity. We are part of the ecosystems that we are destroying and if we allow natural systems to continue to break down, civilization as we know it will collapse.  Whether we realize it or not, we are at war with nature and this is not just suicide it is genocide.  

People are the problem, but we can also be the cure. In 2024 millions of people came together to defend the planet and all the life forms that inhabit it.  We owe these people a debt of gratitude, not just for the work they do, but for the role they play in keeping hope alive and encouraging others to join the fight to save our planet and ourselves.

The value of initiatives like the Eastern Shore citizen climate science project in Canada cannot be overstated. This is one of countless projects that are building community and forging relationships with nature based on reciprocity and mutualism.  

Human well-being is inextricably linked to the health of the planet, and these stories are proof that we are capable of being good stewards. It is up to us, what we do, or don’t do, will determine the fate of life on Earth.

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