Africa’s first green hydrogen plant to be complete in Namibia by 2024
French power producer HDF Energy is constructing a 3.1 billion Namibian dollar (USD $181.25 million) hydrogen plant powered by solar panels.
Today (2017 C.E. - 2025 C.E.)
This archive spans the years 2017 through 2025, a period marked by rapid advances in clean energy, medicine, technology, and social equity. It collects documented breakthroughs, policy wins, and scientific achievements from the present era. If you want evidence that progress is real and ongoing, this is where to look.
Scientists achieve the impossible, safely destroy toxic ‘forever chemicals’
Even low-level exposure to these chemicals over a sustained amount of time can lead to serious health effects, including thyroid disease, reduced immune response, and several cancers.
California passes law requiring companies to post salary ranges on job listings
The law will also require California-based companies with more than 100 employees to show their median gender and racial pay gaps — a first for a U.S. state.
World’s largest shipping line reroutes its ships to avoid hitting blue whales
Blue whales off Sri Lanka finally have a powerful ally in their corner. The world’s largest container shipping company voluntarily rerouted its vessels away from waters where pygmy blue whales live and feed — without any regulatory requirement to do so. Scientists estimate a 15-nautical-mile route adjustment could reduce fatal collisions by up to 95% for this resident population. The hope now is that MSC’s move pressures international maritime authorities to make the change binding for all ships. When industry leaders act ahead of regulation, it shows that targeted, science-based advocacy can protect wildlife at a genuinely global scale.
China’s CO2 emissions fall by record 8% in second quarter of 2022
China’s emissions have now fallen year-on-year for four consecutive quarters, extending what was already the longest sustained decline in recent history.
San Francisco decriminalizes psychedelics
City lawmakers have unanimously approved a measure calling for the decriminalization of psychedelics like psilocybin and ayahuasca.
World’s first 100% hydrogen-powered trains begin operations in Germany
Hydrogen-powered passenger trains now cover an entire regional rail network in Lower Saxony, Germany — 14 Alstom Coradia iLint trains that have fully retired the diesel locomotives once used on the Cuxhaven-to-Buxtehude lines. Each train pulls oxygen from the air, combines it with hydrogen stored on the roof, and emits only water vapor, traveling roughly 1,000 kilometers between refuels. The regional operator has pledged to never buy another diesel train, citing both climate goals and the cleaner air passengers breathe at small-town platforms. It’s a modest fleet in a single corner of Germany, but it’s the first proof anywhere that diesel regional rail can be fully replaced — a template other countries with long, lightly used routes can now follow.
Hawaii shuts down its last coal-fired power plant
In 2020, Hawaii’s Legislature passed a law banning the use of coal for energy production at the start of 2023.
The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court strikes down ban on buggery
The Offenses Against the Person Act, imported from England, criminalized “unnatural offenses” and carried a maximum penalty of 10 years with hard labor.
Indonesia announces plan to protect 10% of its seas by 2030, and 30% by 2045
Indonesia’s marine protection plan is one of the most ambitious ocean commitments any nation has made — a two-phase expansion that would eventually shield nearly a million square kilometers of some of Earth’s most biodiverse waters. The country’s eastern seas sit within the Pacific Coral Triangle, home to more reef fish and coral species than anywhere else on the planet. Experts are cheering the target while urging the government to prioritize genuinely effective, community-centered management over coverage alone. If Indonesia gets this right, it could become a model for tropical nations across the Indo-Pacific.