5 ways we’re making progress on climate change

The good news about global warming.

Vow | April 26, 2025
By Bryan Walsh

A solar array across from White River in Montague Township, Michigan, on June 27, 2024. Bloomberg via Getty Images

Any time I try to convince skeptical people that the world isn’t as bad as they think it is — which I do quite a lot, given that I write a newsletter called Good News — they usually come back with a two-word rejoinder: “climate change.”

It’s a tough one to rebut. Climate change is very real, and its toll is worsening by the year. 2024 was the hottest year on record, and the first year where the average global temperature was 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than it was in the pre-industrial era — a red line set by policymakers as part of the Paris agreement. Antarctica’s winter sea ice dropped to its second-lowest level on record this past fall, while the world has now experienced more than $4 trillion — yes, with a “t” — in damages from extreme weather events since 1970. And in the White House, President Donald Trump is busy eviscerating government climate research and pulling back on clean energy policies.

Economic growth makes us all better, but it requires more energy, and as long as that energy mostly derives from fossil fuels, which still provide about 80 percent of global energy, it will make the world warmer as well. In a particularly bitter irony, one of the most important environmental advances in recent years — the reduction in conventional air pollution — seems to play a role in accelerating the pace of climate change.

But two things can be true: Even as climate change gets worse every year, every year we’re making more progress to slow it down. That’s the theme of “Escape Velocity,” an excellent package that came out this week from Vox’s climate team. As Vox climate editor Paige Vega wrote: “The energy economy is transitioning. Technology is advancing. The market is shifting. Our politics might feel stuck, but in many important ways, we continue to move forward.”

So, in honor of the end of Earth Week, here are five positive trends that demonstrate that the fight against climate change is far from lost.