International community milestones | Good News for Humankind

Forest with sun shining through, for article on land-use emissions

Global land-use emissions have fallen 30% this century

By Peter Schulte / August 22, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Net land-use emissions averaged roughly 5 billion metric tons a year over 2015–24, with 2025 about a third below the 2000s average — driven by slowing deforestation and by regrowing forests pulling carbon back out of the air. Brazil’s forest protection policies, Indonesia’s peatland rewetting, and China’s reforestation programs reshaped the picture. The uncertainty is large, more than half that figure. And the Democratic Republic of the Congo remains hard to reach, since its clearing is subsistence farming rather than export crops. Where deforestation is commercial, policy can stop it. Where it isn’t, that is much less clear.

Batteries, for article on lithium-ion battery costs

Battery costs have declined by 99% worldwide over three decades

By Peter Schulte / August 16, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Battery storage — once the missing link in the clean energy transition — is finally arriving at scale, and the numbers behind it are hard to overstate. A learning curve built from millions of small improvements in chemistry and manufacturing has made what once seemed impossible feel routine. What was an extraordinary expense in 1991 now costs a fraction of that, pulling electric vehicles, home storage, and grid-scale power into reach for far more people. Supply chain pressures and raw material constraints mean progress isn’t guaranteed — but the direction, so far, is undeniable.

River in Africa's Sahel, for article on Sahel groundwater

After decades of drought, groundwater is rising across Africa’s Sahel

By Peter Schulte / August 6, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Water tables across much of Niger have climbed roughly 13 feet, refilling aquifers that farming families rely on for drinking water and irrigation. Lake Chad — a vital source of fish, water, and grazing land for the region — swelled past 9,000 square miles in 2024, nearing its 1960s extent, while 200 million regrown trees are anchoring soil and reviving wildlife habitat. Returning rains and farmer-led restoration are rebuilding food and water security across the region. The catch: the same fierce storms driving this recovery are killing people and destroying homes, and whether the aquifers can outpace a fast-growing population remains uncertain.

Whale fin, for article on Antarctic whale recovery, for article on humpback whale recovery

Humpback whales rebound from near-extinction after 1986 hunting ban

By Peter Schulte / August 2, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Humpback whales are staging one of the most remarkable comebacks in modern conservation history, with southern hemisphere populations growing from fewer than 10,000 at the peak of commercial whaling to more than 100,000 today. Last December, a South African couple counted 299 humpbacks gathered in a single group — what experts describe as likely the largest such sighting on record. It’s a living signal of what decades of sustained international protection can achieve. But the recovery is fragile: shipping traffic around southern Africa quadrupled after 2023, raising serious collision risks for whales that took generations to return.

Portable electric stove, for article on clean cooking investment

Africa’s clean cooking investment tops $3 billion since 2024 summit

By Peter Schulte / July 23, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Clean cooking investment in Africa has crossed $3.1 billion in commitments since 2024, representing a genuine shift in how seriously the world is treating a crisis that kills an estimated 850,000 people a year — more than malaria. Funding has reached communities across dozens of countries, and new policies now cover governments responsible for the majority of Africans without clean cooking access. Yet pledges and deployment remain different things, and the funding still falls well short of what universal access requires. This momentum shows that a health crisis long treated as invisible is finally being treated as solvable.

Water falling on hand, for article on clean water access

Nearly a billion people gained clean water and 1.2 billion gained sanitation since 2015

By Peter Schulte / July 12, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Clean water access for nearly a billion people and sanitation for 1.2 billion are among the headline achievements of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals decade — part of a broader surge that also includes a 30 percent drop in new HIV infections and internet access nearly doubling. These gains reflect what sustained international cooperation and targeted investment can actually deliver. Yet only 36 percent of trackable SDG targets are on or near schedule, and gender equality goals remain entirely off track. The window to finish what this decade started is still open — but narrowing fast.

Bike delivery person, for article on gig worker convention

ILO adopts first global standard for gig workers, covering 435 million people

By Peter Schulte / June 24, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Gig workers around the world now have something they’ve never had before: a binding international standard that says their rights matter, regardless of how platforms classify them. The ILO’s new Convention C193 extends protections — fair pay, collective bargaining, safety, and freedom from discrimination — to an estimated 435 million platform workers globally. Crucially, it also requires transparency around the algorithms that hire, manage, and sometimes silence workers without explanation.
Winning support across 187 member states makes this more than a symbolic gesture. It’s a foundation that labor movements everywhere can build on.

Satellite image of Africa at night with sparse lights, for article on Mission 300 electricity access

50 million Africans have gained electricity since a continental push began in 2025

By Peter Schulte / June 20, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Mission 300 is proving that coordinated global action can electrify a continent faster than anyone thought possible. Fifty million people across 40 African countries now have power they lacked just 18 months ago — and the initiative is delivering connections at nearly double its original pace. In Tanzania alone, electrification is happening five times faster than before Mission 300 launched. The $15 billion committed by the World Bank and African Development Bank, amplified by private capital, shows what alignment between governments, funders, and communities can unlock. This is a working model for what determined, coordinated investment can do.

Tuna swimming, for article on tuna stock health, for article on tuna stock health

No major commercial tuna stocks remain overfished, ISSF report finds

By Peter Schulte / June 9, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Tuna recovery has reached a milestone that ocean scientists have been working toward for generations — for the first time since scientists began tracking these stocks in 2011, none of the world’s 23 major commercial tuna stocks are classified as overfished. That turnaround reflects decades of international cooperation, science-based catch limits, and harvest strategies that now cover more than half of the global tuna catch. Getting all 23 stocks out of the danger zone while total catch was simultaneously rising shows that abundance and sustainability can move together. It’s a hopeful proof of concept for global fisheries management everywhere.

Solar panels, for article on Africa renewable energy capacity, for article on California solar milestone

Africa nearly tripled new renewable capacity in 2025

By Peter Schulte / June 7, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

African countries added 11.3 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity in 2025, nearly triple the 4.2 GW added in 2024, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.The shift reaches deeper than capacity numbers. Of 322 energy projects announced across Africa last year, 253 were renewable — 173 of them solar — while only 22 were natural gas. The economics, as one Kenyan climate finance lead put it, have “decisively turned in favor of clean energy.”The biggest remaining obstacle isn’t technology. It’s financing — African countries face borrowing costs up to three times higher than wealthy nations, owing to political and economic risk premiums that no amount of falling solar prices can erase on their own. Closing that gap could determine whether this momentum reaches the communities who need power most.