Unlikely as it may seem, 2022 was also a year of uplifting human rights victories, extraordinary conservation wins, big milestones in global health and development, and an unprecedented acceleration in the clean energy transition.Pakistan passed a new law significantly strengthening protections for women in the workplace, India's Supreme Court ruled police could not take criminal action against sex workers, and gave them access to social welfare, bank accounts and voting rights, and teenage mothers in Tanzania were allowed back to school after the reversal of a 20 year old ban.In Mexico, Quintana Roo became the tenth state to decriminalise abortion, Sierra Leone took a huge giant leap forward in liberalizing laws on reproductive rights, after the president’s cabinet unanimously backed a bill to expand access to abortion, and lawmakers in Liberia set in motion a bill to do the same.Slovenia became the 31st country to legalize same-sex marriage, Cubans overwhelmingly backed same-sex marriage in a referendum, and the last two states in Mexico legalized it, meaning love is now allowed everywhere in the tenth most populous nation in the world.In news that didn't make any headlines, the Department of Justice reported that between 2012 and 2021 rates of violent victimization (robbery and sexual, aggravated and simple assault) declined from 26.1 to 16.5 incidents per 1,000 people, youth crime fell to its lowest level on record, and so did the number of young people being prosecuted, giving tens of thousands of teens a second chance."