What Went Right is a weekly video podcast from Positive News, bringing you the good news that matters. In every episode, Positive News chief digital editor Tom Pattinson and journalist and broadcaster Lucy Watson pick three of the week's most interesting positive developments – from climate solutions and scientific breakthroughs to advances in healthcare, ambitious community projects, conservation wins and tech innovations. Expect informed conversation, surprising stories and a closer look at the people and ideas behind positive change.
This week: the women challenging powerful institutions win the ‘alternative Nobel prize’, renewable energy helps shield the UK from the global gas crisis, countries make progress on healthy ageing, and a rescued gorilla gives birth after being returned to the wild.
🏆 The women taking on entrenched power
The 2026 Right Livelihood Award, often known as the ‘alternative Nobel prize’, has gone to four women and women-led organisations working on human rights, democracy, AI and rural communities. Tom and Lucy look at Pakistani human rights lawyer Jalila Haider, the Rural Women’s Assembly in southern Africa, the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association and AI researcher Timnit Gebru, whose work questions who builds artificial intelligence, who benefits from it and who gets to decide how it develops.
🌞 Renewables soften the energy shock
Record wind and solar generation has supplied 41% of UK electricity so far this year, compared with 25% from gas, according to Carbon Brief.With global gas prices hit by disruption around the Strait of Hormuz, Tom and Lucy look at how renewable energy is increasingly being seen not only as a climate solution, but as a route towards greater energy independence. Across 12 European countries, heat pump sales have also risen 11% in the first half of 2026, with around 1.16 million units sold.
👵 Are we getting better at ageing?
The number of people aged 60 and over is expected to grow from around one billion in 2020 to 2.1 billion by 2050, putting new pressure on health and care systems around the world.But a new report from the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing finds signs of progress. More countries now have laws tackling age discrimination and national long-term care policies, alongside growing efforts to help people remain mobile, socially connected and independent for longer. Tom and Lucy discuss whether the answer to an ageing population lies less in expanding traditional care and more in helping people live healthier, more independent lives in the first place.
🦍 A rewilded gorilla becomes a mother
Lulingu was rescued from the illegal wildlife trade in the Democratic Republic of the Congo when she was around 18 months old and spent years being rehabilitated before finally being returned to the wild in Virunga National Park in 2024. Now she has given birth after mating with a wild silverback, becoming one of the first rewilded Grauer’s gorillas to successfully reproduce in the wild.For conservationists working to rebuild one of the world’s smallest and most isolated gorilla populations, the new arrival offers evidence that carefully managed rewilding can work.
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What Went Right is a Positive News production.
Hosts: Lucy Watson and Tom Pattinson
Produced and edited by Tom Pattinson
Research and reporting: Gavin Haines
Executive producers: Pauline Milligan and Sean Wood
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