7 advances that were made in 2024 in the protection of the environment and the fight against climate change

It is true that it has been another difficult year for the climate and nature.

Global temperatures rose and extreme weather events intensified.

From the 1.5°C threshold being breached for a full year for the first time on record to the disappointment of vulnerable nations at the recent UN climate summit, the challenge may seem daunting.

But this 2024 too there was some progress extraordinary in relation to environment.

And perhaps they were less reported than the natural disasters that affected many places on the planet or the failed public policies.

That is why in this note, weeks before 2025 begins, we offer you a summary of the most important positive environmental milestones that occurred in the last 12 months.

1. The end of coal in the United Kingdom

The UK closed its last coal-fired power station in 2024.

It was a symbolic fact, since this country was the first in the world to use coal for energy generation and this fossil fuel was the vital element of the industrial revolution that there it began.

On September 30, the turbines at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire stopped working and its chimneys stopped belching smoke.

The site will now undergo a two-year decommissioning and demolition process. It is unclear what this site will become, but one proposal is for it to be a warehouse for batteries.

This has already happened in West Yorkshire, at the decommissioned Ferrybridge C power station, which has a storage capacity of 150 MW, enough to power 250,000 homes.

As countries seek to rapidly decarbonize their economies, many former fossil fuel power plants are proving to be places that can be used to house industrial batteries.

2. Global increase in green energy

Renewable energy sources are growing rapidly around the world.

In the United States, wind power generation hit a record high in April, surpassing coal-fired generation.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects the world to add 5,500 GW of renewable energy capacity between 2024 and 2030, and for global renewable capacity to grow 2.7 times compared to 2022.

This amount is slightly below of the UN goal of tripling capacity by 2030.

By the end of this decade, renewable energy sources are expected to account for almost half of all electricity.

Most of this growth comes from a single country: China.

According to the IEA, by 2030, China is expected to account for at least half of the world’s cumulative renewable electricity capacity.

Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, said in a press conference that the “massive growth of renewable energy” in the world was mainly due to economics, rather than government policies, as they are the cheapest option in many countries.

This huge expansion was a “beautiful story,” he said, which could be summed up in two words: “China” and “solar.”

3. Rivers, mountains, waves and whales with legal personality

In 2021, Ecuador issued a landmark ruling stating that mining in its Los Cedros cloud forest violated the rights of nature.

Another ruling in the same country declared that the pollution had violated the rights of the Machángara River that runs through the capital, Quito.

This year, a report was published that concluded that these legal decisions can help protect ecosystems endangered.

Beyond Ecuador, other natural spaces received legal personality in 2024.

In New Zealand, the peaks of Egmont National Park, renamed Te Papakura o Taranaki, were recognized as ancestral mountains and together became a legal entity, known as Te Kāhui Tupua.

In Brazil, a part of the ocean was given legal personality: the coastal city of Linhares recognized its waves as living beings, granting them the right to existence, regeneration and restoration.

Meanwhile, a new treaty signed by Pacific indigenous leaders allowed whales and dolphins to be officially recognized as “legal entities”.

“A case brought to protect whales from transoceanic shipping may be based on a person alleging that they have suffered harm because their ability to watch whales has been reduced,” says Jacqueline Gallant, a lawyer who works on climate change, biodiversity and rights.

“If whales were recognized as legal subjects, the case could more accurately focus on damages to the whales themselves, rather than the person claiming secondary damage for the court to hear the claim,” he added.

Gallant, who works for the Earth Rights Research and Action program at New York University School of Law, says they are pushing the boundaries of the legal imagination.

“Legal personality implies that nature and non-human living beings must be understood as subjects [en lugar de objetos]with intrinsic value and own interests and needs,” he says.

4. New ocean protections for the Azores

Las Azores announced a new marine protected area (MPA) in the North Atlantic. When established, it will be the largest in the region and will cover 30% of the sea surrounding the Portuguese archipelago.

Half of the 287,000 km2 area will be “fully protected”, without fishing or extraction of other natural resources, according to the initiative behind the AMP. The other half will be “highly protected.”

The area contains nine hydrothermal vents, 28 species of marine mammals and 560 species of fish, among many others.

MPAs can be very effective in protecting biodiversity if their restrictions are properly enforced.

Overall, only 2.8% of the world’s oceans are effectively protected and only 8.3% are conserved, according to a Bloomberg Philanthropies Ocean Initiative report.

5. Deforestation in the Amazon reaches its lowest level in nine years

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell to its lowest level in nine years in 2024, with a reduction of more than 30% in the 12 months to July, according to data published by Brazil’s national space research institute.

Approximately 6,288 square kilometers of rainforest were destroyed, an area larger than the size of the US state of Delaware.

While this area is still huge, it is the lowest annual loss since 2015.

Deforestation declined even as fires in the Brazilian Amazon increased nearly 18-fold over the same time period following a historic drought.

All this happens almost two years after the president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office and pledged to end deforestation by 2030 and end illegal logging.

6. Conservation can really make a difference to biodiversity

A major review of conservation initiatives this year concluded that in most cases they are effective in slowing or reversing biodiversity loss.

The scientists reviewed 665 trials of conservation measures around the world, including several historic ones, and found that they had had a positive effect in two out of three cases.

One such example is the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, which worked in Kazakhstan with local partners and other international organizations to save the saiga antelopea critically endangered species in the Golden Steppe grassland.

The project used careful, science-based monitoring, tagging, and habitat protection and restoration to ensure the best recovery of the saiga antelope, which numbered just 20,000 in 2003.

Today, 2.86 million antelope roam the Golden Steppe, and it has moved from “critically endangered” to “near threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List.

7. Indigenous-led efforts restore skies and rivers

In California, wildlife has benefited from decades-long campaigns by the Yurok Native American tribe to replenish animals on tribal lands.

In 2024, this culminated in the return of salmon to the Klamath River.

After a 100-year hiatus, the fish were spotted in the Klamath River Basin in Oregon, following the historic removal of a dam further down the California stretch of the water body.

In August, the last of the four dams was removed – the largest dam removal project in the United States – following pressure from environmentalists and tribes.

Tribe members expected it would take months for the salmon to return to the upper reaches of the river, as their numbers had been decimated by the poor health of the tributary caused by the dam blocking the natural flow of water.

But in October, Biologists spotted these fish in the fresh waters of Oregon.

“What’s surprising is the sheer number of fish that have returned and the geographic range,” said Barry McCovey, senior fisheries biologist for the Yurok Tribe.

“I couldn’t believe they’d been seen in Oregon. It was incredible, mind-blowing news. When I heard about it, I was like, ‘Wait!’ They’ve exceeded every expectation anyone had.”

Meanwhile, an intensive program to reintroduce California condors also met with increasing success.

The tribe has been carrying out a project since 2008 to release this vulture-like bird, which they consider sacred.

On October 4 of this year, the native community released two more birds, bringing the total of California condors in Yurok territory to 18.

“They’re doing very well,” says Tiana Williams, director of the Yurok Tribe Wildlife Department and a member of the Yurok Nation.