Following the passage of the Climate Change Act, the United Kingdom created a Climate Change Committee to oversee the country’s efforts to reach net-zero emissions. The committee acts as a watchdog by analyzing ways to decarbonize the economy and publishing information that can be leveraged by policymakers, non-governmental organizations, and private sector industries. Its model has since been replicated around the world.

After Alaska and Maine implemented ranked-choice voting, which allows citizens to rank candidates in the order of their preference, voters reported feeling more engaged in the process and noticing less extreme rhetoric among politicians running for office. Despite efforts to repeal the system on the basis that it is confusing, about 70 percent of voters ranked more than one candidate on their ballot.

Utah has universal vote-by-mail, in which every eligible voter receives a ballot in the mail ahead of elections. Even as other Republican-led states have placed more restrictions on voting by mail, Utah legislators have rejected proposed changes, and roughly three-quarters of likely voters in 2024 say they think the process produces “fair outcomes.”

Dairy digesters are oxygen-free systems that break down organic material like manure and turn methane into “biogas,” which can be used to generate electricity or processed into transportation fuel. Once heralded and championed by the California Department of Food and Agriculture as one of the most cost-effective emissions reductions programs, new research shows the real cost is up to 17-times more than what state and industry officials have publicly claimed.

In response to Israel’s war on Gaza, student activists at the University of California Davis helped draft and campaign in support of a bill demanding that the university divest from corporations “complicit in human rights violations against Palestinians,” drawing hundreds to speak before the student government. The student senate ultimately passed the bill by a vote of 12-2 and is now in the process of implementing it.

Since Arkansas does not allow online voter registration, Get Loud Arkansas collects voters’ information via an online form and then submits the registration paperwork for them, helping reach residents who are less likely to register in person via paper applications. So far, 358 people have registered using the organization’s online system, and nearly 80 percent of those were people under 20.

Moms for Housing reclaim vacant homes owned by investors to provide a place for single mothers to live. Advocating for housing as a human right, 13 organizers are currently living in these unoccupied houses and through civil disobedience, managed to negotiate temporary housing as they continue fighting for permanent solutions to the area’s housing crisis.

Turnup Jigawa is a leadership program that provides mentorship around advocacy and communication with the goal of training young people to engage with lawmakers and community stakeholders. Students go on to spearhead projects in their own communities, such as one participant’s awareness campaign around environmental hygiene and another’s initiative to provide college and career counseling to secondary students.

Ahead of its 2020 presidential election, Taiwan tried to fight disinformation from Chinese actors in the courts, prosecuting citizens who were paid to disseminate fake news and fining pro-China news stations accused of broadcasting false information. But the tactics proved ineffective and raised concerns around free speech, leading the country to take a different approach during the onset of the pandemic and leading up to its latest election by making accurate information more widely available and bolstering its network of civic fact-checking organizations.

Local activists are joining together to protest the potential closure of Southwest Memorial Hospital’s birthing center, advocating and organizing to ensure the hospital stays open and locals can access the care they need in rural areas.

Philadelphia’s Innovation Fund and Innovation Management Team provide support for municipal departments to help them better serve residents. The initiative, which includes an Innovation Academy that trains city workers to apply design thinking and creative problem solving, has supported projects ranging from the development of multilingual voter guides to free pantries for menstrual products.

Some states are combining ranked choice voting, which asks voters to rank candidates by order of preference, with Final Five primaries where multiple candidates advance to the general election, rather than one candidate from each major party. After implementing both reforms, Alaska saw more women run for office than in the five previous elections, and an analysis of the system found it improved representation by giving voters more choice and encouraging candidates to appeal to a wider demographic.

In the absence of an official union, workers at an Amazon air hub formed an organizing committee to advocate for better conditions, circulating petitions and staging walk-outs to protest low pay and unsafe heat levels. The workers succeeded in persuading the company to change its policy around unpaid holiday closures and have also won incremental wage increases and improved heat protections.

Advocates of ranked choice voting, which allows residents to rank candidates from their favorite to least favorite, say the system encourages politicians to appeal to a wider range of viewpoints, as evidenced by a recent congressional race in Alaska in which Mary Peltola, a moderate Democrat, was elected over more extreme candidates. The system is currently used by two states for statewide races and in nearly four dozen cities for local elections.

Organizations such as One America Movement and the Colossian Forum train clergy to facilitate discussion around polarizing issues through sermons, messaging, and faith-related events. The initiatives have reached 100 and 600 participants, respectively, who bring conflict resolution strategies back to their congregations.

After they were socially, economically, and politically forced from their agricultural land, the people who have used regenerative farming principles for millennia are reimplementing the practice in their communities. This allows them to improve soil health and reconnect with the land.

A job training program for single moms experiencing poverty, called Climb Wyoming, runs 14, 12-week training sessions per year. The program provides wraparound support for the moms alongside the skills training, including mental health support, life skills training, and help navigating the criminal justice system.

Since 2015, 18 states have adopted the Civic Education Initiative, which requires high school students to take an exam modeled on the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Civics test. However, researchers have determined that voter turnout rates did not increase among the target age group in states that adopted the policy.

Following the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon created a mandate requiring all service members to receive a one-day training on domestic extremism. But military members report that the “stand-down” trainings were half-hearted and disorganized, and two years later, few of the recommendations developed by the Pentagon’s working group on extremism have been implemented.

Thanks to a 2019 law, New Jersey voters who request a mail-in ballot one time continue to receive them in perpetuity for future elections without needing to submit another request. The state has seen mail-in voting rates increase in off-year elections since the perpetual vote-by-mail list was created, with 22 percent of votes cast in 2021 attributed to mail-in ballots compared to 16.7 percent in 2019.

Ahead of a ballot measure to guarantee access to abortion and reproductive health care in Ohio, the Black-led Ohio Women’s Alliance spoke with more than 1.3 million young female BIPOC voters, framing the campaign as a fight for a wide range of reproductive services. Residents approved the constitutional amendment with 60 percent of female voters and 83 percent of Black voters voting in favor.

Taiwanese fact-checking website Cofacts operates similarly to Wikipedia, allowing anyone to become an editor, respond to questions, and evaluate responses. A study comparing the platform to professional fact-checking sites found that the crowdsourced version typically responded to questions more quickly, included more information about local and regional issues, and was just as accurate.

The Gonzales Youth Council, which allows young people to advise local government on issues that affect them, has inspired other youth councils to sprout up in neighboring communities. Youth commissioners participate in a paid summer fellowship to learn about city and school district processes, and the council has made several recommendations that have gone on to become ordinances, including fines for adults who facilitate underage drinking.

Following a fraudulent election and violent backlash against demonstrators, activists in Belarus used open source photographs and documents, as well as those submitted by journalists and citizens, to expose police and state actors participating in human rights violations via a secure Telegram channel.

GARViS, Georgia’s new system for documenting voter records, stores information on roughly 7 million active voters and hundreds of thousands of inactive voters, including their addresses, assigned polling places, sample ballots, and early voting schedules. The George Secretary of State’s Office reports that the new system has helped cut down check-in time on election day from about a minute and a half per voter to about 47 seconds per voter, streamlining the process for both poll workers and residents.