The headlines screamed disaster, but 2025 may be remembered as the year climate progress became self-sustaining.
You probably spent 2025 reading about wildfires, floods, and politicians dismantling climate policies.
The doom scrolling was relentless. Climate anxiety became the default emotional state for anyone paying attention. Every news cycle brought fresh disasters, new setbacks, more reasons to feel like the planet was careening toward catastrophe with nobody at the wheel.
And yet, while you were absorbing all that bad news, something else was happening. It wasn't making headlines. It wasn't going viral. The kind of progress that unfolds too slowly to compete with disaster footage but fast enough to fundamentally alter what's possible.
Yes, 2025 had plenty of climate disasters, but it also had wins that most people never noticed because they were too busy, understandably, focusing on everything going wrong.
1. Renewables generated more electricity than coal globally for the first time
In the first half of 2025, renewable energy generated more electricity worldwide than coal, marking a historic milestone that fulfilled a 2020 prediction by the International Energy Agency.
Solar and wind power together outpaced growth in global electricity demand, driving down both coal and fossil gas power generation in the process.
This wasn't a marginal victory. It represented a fundamental shift in how the world produces power.
China and India, the two most populous nations on Earth, led this growth. The transition happened faster than almost anyone predicted, driven by the simple fact that solar panels have become so cheap that deploying renewables is now more economical than building new fossil fuel infrastructure.
2. Finland phased out coal four years ahead of schedule
On April 1, 2025, Finland's power utility Helen decommissioned its Salmisaari coal plant in Helsinki, bringing the country to the brink of a full coal phase-out four years ahead of its 2029 deadline. Coal now represents less than 1% of Finland's energy mix, down from 23% in 2003.
The dramatic shift came from clear political direction combined with explosive growth in wind power. Since 2020, wind generation more than doubled and now supplies a quarter of Finland's electricity.
Over the same period, coal-fired generation plummeted by 73%. The closure will reduce Finland's total emissions by nearly 2% and Helsinki's emissions by 30%.
What makes Finland's achievement particularly notable is that the transition actually lowered electricity prices for consumers while increasing energy security by replacing imported fossil fuels with domestically produced wind power.
3. New York and Vermont passed laws making polluters pay
New York enacted a landmark Climate Change Superfund Act in 2025, following Vermont's similar legislation passed in 2024.
These laws represent a decisive shift toward making fossil fuel companies financially responsible for climate damages rather than passing costs onto communities and taxpayers.
Additional bills have been introduced in California, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Maine. The movement recognizes that coal, oil, and gas companies knew decades ago that fossil fuels would damage the climate but chose to protect profits instead.
These victories mark the beginning of holding polluters accountable for harm they knowingly caused.
4. Electric vehicle infrastructure got a major legal boost
After the Trump administration attempted to block clean transportation programs, legal action prompted a restart of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, unlocking $2.7 billion for EV charging infrastructure nationwide along highways. Every state has now submitted plans under new guidance and all are moving forward with implementation.
The victory ensures that essential charging networks communities have been waiting for can actually be built, addressing one of the major barriers to EV adoption: range anxiety and lack of convenient charging options outside major urban areas.
5. The High Seas Treaty took effect
On September 19, 2025, Morocco became the 60th country to ratify the High Seas Treaty, enabling it to take effect in January 2026.
This treaty establishes a legal framework to protect marine biodiversity in international waters, aiming to safeguard nearly two-thirds of the world's oceans.
International waters have historically been a regulatory void where exploitation occurred with minimal oversight. The treaty creates mechanisms for establishing marine protected areas, conducting environmental impact assessments, and sharing benefits from marine genetic resources in areas beyond national jurisdiction.
6. States stepped up as federal climate action faltered
While the federal government retreated on climate policy, states filled the void with increased ambition.
Multiple states set new emissions-reduction targets, regulated utilities, bolstered public transportation, and drafted energy-efficient building codes throughout 2025.
Connecticut enacted legislation to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 economy-wide, modernize the electricity grid, boost climate resiliency, and promote climate-responsible planning.
Ohio passed historic bipartisan energy reform to optimize the electrical grid and give funding to schools for solar and energy efficiency.
Utah approved legislation allowing small plug-in solar systems without utility approval, giving renters a simple, low-cost way to reduce grid reliance.
These state-level victories demonstrate that climate progress doesn't solely depend on federal action. Local and state governments can drive meaningful change through targeted policies that directly benefit their residents while reducing emissions.
7. Conservation efforts proved effective at scale
A major study published in the journal Science reviewed over 600 conservation trials and discovered positive effects in two-thirds of cases, demonstrating that conservation efforts are genuinely effective at reducing global biodiversity loss.
The research provides hard evidence that targeted conservation interventions work when properly implemented. This matters because skeptics have long questioned whether conservation spending produces meaningful results. The data shows it does, giving support for continued and expanded investment in protecting ecosystems and species.
Meanwhile, specific conservation wins accumulated throughout the year.
Over 35 Scottish wildcats have been released into Cairngorms National Park since 2023, with successful breeding producing multiple litters in 2024 and 2025.
More than 7,000 Partula snails, once extinct in the wild, were returned to French Polynesia after a 30-year breeding program.
Seahorse populations in Dorset's Studland Bay reached record levels following increased protections and habitat restoration.
What it adds up to
None of these wins reversed climate change. Emissions still rose to historic levels in 2025. Global temperatures continued climbing. Extreme weather events caused devastating damage across multiple continents. The International Energy Agency projects the world needs to add 4,600 gigawatts of renewable capacity by 2030 to meet climate goals, and current progress falls short of that target.
But something shifted anyway. The economics of energy fundamentally changed. Renewables became cheaper than fossil fuels. Wind and solar capacity grew fast enough to outpace electricity demand growth.
Countries discovered they could phase out coal faster than their own deadlines while lowering consumer costs. Legal frameworks emerged to hold polluters accountable. Infrastructure for clean transportation received funding despite political opposition.
These aren't small, symbolic gestures. They're structural changes that create momentum difficult to reverse.
When renewables become the economically superior choice, when conservation demonstrably works, when multiple states independently pursue climate action regardless of federal positions, the transition continues even when political winds shift.
The pattern reveals something important: climate action doesn't require everyone to agree or every government to cooperate. It requires enough economic incentive, enough local initiative, enough legal framework, and enough proven effectiveness that progress becomes self-sustaining.
The wins of 2025 suggest that threshold may have been crossed, at least in some crucial areas.
That doesn't mean the fight is over. But it does mean the nature of the fight has changed.
The question is no longer whether renewable energy can compete with fossil fuels. It already does.
The question is how fast the transition happens and who benefits from it. Whether legal accountability for climate damages becomes widespread or remains limited to a few pioneering states. Whether conservation funding scales to match the scope of biodiversity loss.
The victories of 2025 prove progress is possible even in hostile political environments. They demonstrate that economic forces, local action, international cooperation, and legal pressure can drive change when federal leadership fails. They show that setbacks don't erase momentum when fundamental dynamics have shifted.
Climate doom makes for compelling headlines. But while you were reading those headlines, the global energy system transformed, countries accelerated their fossil fuel phaseouts, legal frameworks for polluter accountability emerged, and conservation programs proved their worth at scale. Those developments matter. They create conditions for faster progress ahead. And they happened whether you noticed or not.
