There is plenty of good news to go around this week, from environmental progress in China and Ireland to new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease in the US. Indonesia also celebrates a record low poverty rate, while the UK has its most diverse parliament yet.
Indonesia has lifted three million people out of poverty over the last decade, according to new figures from Statistics Indonesia. The poverty rate is now at an historic low of 9%, though this is still higher than the government’s target of 7%. While some have criticised the improvement as being due more to social assistance (such as cash handouts) than to overall gains in living standards, these figures still mean millions of Indonesians are better off than ever before.
China’s reliance on coal has long been used as a counter-argument against green energy, but that argument is crumbling, according to a new report by the thinktank Global Energy Monitor. China has almost two-thirds of the major wind and solar projects currently under construction worldwide, and its progress suggests that the global goal of tripling green energy capacity by 2030 is “well within reach,” say the report’s authors.
Ireland has also made environmental progress, with a 6.8% decline in carbon emissions in 2023. This is despite rising population and agricultural expansion, though the Environmental Protection Agency still cautions that Ireland is “still well off track” when it comes to its target of halving emissions by 2030.
The UK’s parliament just became its most diverse yet, with women comprising 40.5% of the House of Commons and Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s new cabinet including more than 45% women. A record 90 minority ethnic MPs were elected, an increase of 24. Finally, the US has approved a new treatment for early-stage Alzheimer’s, which can slow cognitive decline by clearing amyloid protein from patients’ brains
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