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Trump is back in the White House, there is conflict in Europe and the Middle East, the climate crisis is worsening, and right-wing parties are celebrating successes in many countries. Scrolling through social media, one quickly gets the feeling that things are going downhill everywhere. Yet this picture is not accurate. From a progressive perspective, 2025 was also a year of successes. Across the globe, there were election victories, reforms and scientific findings that demonstrate how redistribution, climate protection and democracy can deliver very tangible progress.
Mexico: Successful left-wing president reduced violence and increased minimum wages and pensions
Mexico has had its first left-wing president since 2024: Claudia Sheinbaum, the former mayor of the capital and a long-time ally of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. 2025 marks her first full year in office, and after twelve months in office she is one of the most popular heads of state in the region – with approval ratings of between 70 and just under 80 per cent. She is not only continuing her predecessor’s welfare state policies but also achieving successes of her own: higher minimum wages and pensions, more social programmes for families, farmers and schoolchildren, and price interventions in the energy market. Furthermore, she has established community markets where small-scale farmers sell staple foods at affordable yet fair prices.
A major success is the significant decline in violence. Homicides have fallen by between 16 and 25 per cent, depending on the data source.
Further measures ensure greater state control over the energy sector, free internet access for all, the construction of over 3,000 kilometres of new railway lines and the building of 1.8 million homes.
Under President Lula da Silva, Brazil has significantly reduced deforestation in the Amazon. According to official satellite data, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon region was roughly halved between 2022 and 2025. In the period from August 2024 to July 2025 alone, it fell by a further 11 per cent to its lowest level in eleven years.
At the same time, Brazil has taken on a central role in the new global forest conservation fund, the ‘Tropical Forests Forever Facility’. The country has pledged a contribution of around one billion US dollars, meaning it is no longer merely a recipient of climate finance but has become one of the largest financiers itself. The fund is designed to provide tropical forest nations with long-term, predictable financial support for the protection of their forests. A significant portion of the funds is reserved for indigenous communities and local populations.
Domestically, Lula is pursuing a traditional redistribution policy. The statutory minimum wage was raised from 1,412 to 1,518 reais at the start of 2025 (from around 230 euros to 247 euros), representing a 7.5 per cent increase and a real gain above inflation. This benefits not only employees, but also, through indexation, pensioners and recipients of social benefits. At the same time, the Bolsa Família social programme has been expanded; according to official data, it has lifted millions of people above the poverty line.
Read more here.
Australia: Record victory for the Social Democrats
In Australia, the Labor Party achieved its best-ever result in 2025 and can continue to govern with an absolute majority under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The conservative, Trump-aligned opposition suffered a significant defeat. During the election campaign, Labor promised better climate policy, investment in renewable energy, relief from the cost of living and the strengthening of workers’ rights – and received a clear mandate for these policies.
As in Australia, the Conservatives in Canada were also well ahead of their progressive rivals in the polls. However, Trump’s aggressive stance towards Canada turned the tide, and the progressive Liberal Party went on to win the Canadian election.
Regional elections in Finland: Right-wing populists suffer heavy losses – the Left gains ground
On 13 April 2025, local and regional elections were held simultaneously in Finland. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) emerged as the strongest force nationwide, with the Left gaining ground – whilst the right-wing populist Finns Party suffered a historic debacle, seeing its share of the vote almost halved. In major cities such as Tampere, the Social Democrats and the Left expanded their majorities. Many voters used the election as a referendum against austerity policies and racism.
Norway: Social Democrats win elections and show that wealth taxes can win a majority
In Norway, the 2025 wealth tax was one of the central campaign issues. In the parliamentary elections, the parties that defend the tax on large fortunes and had increased it in the past ultimately prevailed. The Social Democratic Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre was re-elected, and the red-green bloc once again holds a majority in the new Storting.
Around 12 per cent of the population – essentially the wealthiest 10 per cent – pay wealth tax, thereby providing billions for healthcare, education and infrastructure. Norway thus demonstrates that a wealth tax can be technically feasible, politically viable and compatible with high levels of employment and prosperity.
Read more here.
USA: Setbacks for Trump, Progressives Win Elections
Despite Trump, 2025 was a year of notable successes for progressive Democrats in the US. In New York City, 34-year-old Democratic Socialist Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani won the mayoral election, securing a clear victory over independent former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. Mamdani will become the city’s first Muslim mayor and the youngest in over a century. He ran on a platform focused on making life affordable: a rent freeze for many homes, nearly doubling the minimum wage to $30, free buses, massive investment in social housing, municipal supermarkets to combat high food prices, universal childcare, and higher taxes for millionaires and corporations.
His victory was part of a broader wave of Democratic successes on the same election day, such as the gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey, where candidates ran on a clear distinction from Trump and focused on issues such as abortion rights, affordable living and functioning public services.
International survey: Majority want fair taxation of wealth
A survey conducted by Earth4All and Ipsos across 17 G20 countries shows that 68 per cent of respondents support a wealth tax on very high net worth individuals to fund greater investment in climate action, social welfare and public infrastructure. Around 70 per cent also support higher income taxes for top earners and higher corporation taxes for large corporations. In countries such as Indonesia, Turkey, India and the UK, support is in some cases well over 70 per cent.
A concrete proposal for a global billionaire tax already exists. Economist Gabriel Zucman has presented a corresponding calculation for the G20: A 2 per cent levy on very large fortunes could generate hundreds of billions of dollars a year worldwide for public services. By way of comparison, billionaires currently pay an average of only around 0.3 per cent of their wealth in taxes.
“Only ‘yes’ means ‘yes’”: More and more countries are adopting the consent principle in sexual criminal law
By 2025, there has been a noticeable shift in sexual criminal law across Europe: an increasing number of countries are enshrining the principle of consent in law. Accordingly, sexual acts are only legal if all parties involved actively consent. The decisive factor is therefore no longer whether the victims ‘put up enough resistance’, but whether consent was given. In addition to Spain, Sweden, Finland and nine other EU countries, France and Norway also followed suit in 2025. Austria could follow suit next year.
Worldwide: Electricity from renewables exceeds that from coal for the first time
According to an analysis by the think tank Ember, renewable energy sources generated more electricity worldwide than coal-fired power stations for the first time in the first half of 2025. Wind, solar and hydro power saw strong growth, whilst coal continued to decline. This marks an important tipping point: the cheaper and more widespread renewable energy becomes, the more difficult it becomes politically to justify coal power and fossil fuel subsidies. At the same time, analyses by Ember and other analysts show that this milestone was reached despite the US’s backward-looking climate policy under Trump. The global expansion of wind and solar energy was therefore strong enough to make headway even in the face of resistance from major fossil fuel producers and governments that deny or downplay climate change.
A solidarity levy on airline tickets could help end HIV
According to studies, a new drug called ‘Lenacapavir’ can prevent almost all HIV infections and only needs to be administered twice a year. However, at the time, the pharmaceutical company Gilead was charging €20,000 per dose, and even this year the price in the US remains at around €12,000. This is a particular problem for people in poor countries. In September 2025, Unitaid – a global health initiative – announced, together with the Gates Foundation, that it would make this drug available as a generic for around 20 dollars per dose. It is set to be available in 120 countries from 2027.
“With this product, we can now defeat HIV,” said Carmen Perez Casas, Strategic Lead for HIV at Unitaid.
The funding for the initiative comes, among other sources, from a solidarity levy on airline tickets. Since its foundation in 2006, two-thirds of Unitaid’s funding has come from these solidarity levies, which France was the first country to introduce. In 2025, a new coalition of eight countries (France, Kenya, Barbados, Spain, Somalia, Benin, Sierra Leone and Antigua and Barbuda) was launched, with the aim of levying a solidarity levy on premium flights in future. Their aim is to ensure fairer financing of global efforts in the areas of climate protection, pandemic preparedness and sustainable development.
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