After year of climate disasters, world off-track to curb warming
Catastrophic floods, crop-wilting droughts and record heatwaves this year have shown that climate change warnings are increasingly becoming reality and this is "just the beginning", experts say, as international efforts to cut planet-heating emissions founder.
The year did see some important climate progress, with major new legislation particularly in the United States and Europe as well as a deal at the UN climate talks to help vulnerable countries cope with an increasing onslaught of devastating climate impacts.
But the goal of keeping warming within a safer limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial era appears increasingly in peril, with carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels -- the main driver of global heating -- on track to reach an all-time high in 2022.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres warned world leaders at a climate summit in Egypt in November that humanity faces a stark choice between working together in the battle against global warming or "collective suicide".
They opted to put off the most important decisions for another time, observers say.
This year UN climate science experts issued their strongest warning yet of the dangers facing people and planet, with a landmark report on climate impacts in February dubbed an "atlas of human suffering".
Since then a series of extreme events has illustrated the accelerating dangers of climate change, at barely 1.2C of warming.
Record heatwaves damaged crops from China to Europe, while drought has brought millions to the point of starvation in the Horn of Africa.
Floods super-charged by climate change engulfed Pakistan, affecting 33 million people and causing some $30 billion in damage and economic losses.
"The year 2022 will be one of the hottest years on earth, with all the phenomena that go with higher temperatures," said climate scientist Robert Vautard, head of France's Pierre-Simon Laplace Institute.
"Unfortunately, this is just the beginning."
This year is on track to be the fifth or sixth warmest ever recorded despite the impact, since 2020, of La Nina -- a periodic and naturally occurring phenomenon in the Pacific that cools the atmosphere.
When this phenomenon reverses, potentially within months, the world will likely climb to a "new level" in warming, said Vautard.
- Still polluting -
Economy-battering climate extremes, which amplified the energy price surges for many countries as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, provided the backdrop to last month's high-stakes UN climate talks in Egypt. The negotiations did make history, with wealthy polluters agreeing to a fund to pay for climate damage increasingly unleashed on poorer countries. Pakistani climate minister Sherry Rehman called the move a "down payment on the longer investment in our joint futures". But vulnerable nations and campaigners said the Egypt conference failed to deliver on the emissions reductions needed to curb climate losses and damages in the future. "COP27 tackled the consequences of climate change, but not the cause -- fossil fuels," said Harjeet Singh of Climate Action Network. To keep the 1.5C limit in play, planet-heating emissions need to be slashed by 45 percent by 2030, and be cut to net zero by mid-century. At 2021 UN talks in Glasgow, nations were urged to ramp up their emissions reduction commitments. But only around 30 countries have heeded that call, leaving the world on track to hot up by about 2.5C.
A Rare Cancer And Unbreakable Spirit
Tonight, we bring you the story of remarkable courage in the face of devastating illness. Thirty-four-year-old Teresiah Njeri has been battling a rare and aggressive form of cancer called Adenoid cystic carcinoma for five years. Her journey has been marked by multiple surgeries, radiation treatments, and now, an urgent need to return to India for life-saving care. Despite losing her jaw, facing financial strain, and enduring constant pain, Teresiah's spirit remains unbroken.
March 11, 2025
Twigas on Transit: Giraffe Translocation
Here's a first-person narration story from TURURU the Baringo Giraffe, about her translocation and her friend JOK 9 journey.
March 6, 2025
The Shame Of ECDE Institutions in Kenya | Hard Lessons
Early childhood development centres, ECDE, fall under the jurisdiction of devolved units. Although there has been a tremendous improvement in access to basic education since devolution started, a Senate Committee of Education revealed a complete neglect in many counties. The audit found that in many counties, ECDE learners are housed in dilapidated and pathetic classes.
February 23, 2025
Uyombo Nuclear Jitters
Kenya’s plan to begin construction of a nuclear power plant in 2027 which will be the first of its kind in eastern africa and second in the continent after south africa seems to be firmly on course.
However, residents of uyombo in kilifi county backed by some environmental activists , civil societies and conservation groups are against the project in the area citing potential environmental impacts, health risks as well as detrimental threats to tourism and biodiversity.
Do they have grounds to oppose the nuclear power project? What do nuclear experts think and what is the government’s stand? Here is ntv’s special report; Uyombo Nuclear Jitters by Duncan Khaemba.
February 16, 2025
Living on Hope
When Lydia Sasanu first felt the lump in her breast while nursing her baby, a doctor's reassurance made her doubt her instincts. That decision would change her life. Today, at 38, she battles stage three triple-negative breast cancer – a recurrence after her first surgery failed. From her home in coastal Kwale County, Lydia now makes grueling 500-kilometre journeys to Nairobi for treatment. Each trip stretches her family's resources and tests her resolve, but she perseveres, driven by an unshakable determination to be there for her child. NTV's Hellen Aura traveled with Lydia from the shores of the Indian Ocean to the capital's cancer wards, documenting one woman's fight against a disease that forces thousands of Kenyans to make similar journeys in search of care that should be available closer home. This is Lydia's story, Living On Hope.
February 3, 2025
Ghosts Of 2007: Burden Of Rape
More than 17 years since post-poll violence engulfed Kenya in the aftermath of the 2007 elections, survivors of rape and other sexual violence continue to experience significant physical and psychological trauma and socioeconomic hardship. Women and children, who found themselves caught up in the rage, were attacked and even sexually abused. Until recently, their pain and losses had not been addressed, but the memories continue to haunt them. NTV’s Rose Wangui spoke to women who are raising children born from rape following the disputed presidential elections.
January 14, 2025
Silencing the Guardians | Dissolution of the Kenya Water Towers Agency
After slightly more than 10 years of existence and service in rehabilitating and protecting Water Towers in Kenya, the government through the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry, announced the dissolution of the Kenya Water Towers Agency in December of 2024. This was due to the agency’s lack of sound legal backing and overlapping mandates with other state parastatals.
However, this closure - according to environmentalists - was questionable. The Attorney General for instance - who is the government’s chief legal advisor - had given the green light about the existence of the agency, advising that the legal concerns that the Ministry of Environment was having in closing the agency were unfounded, staff of the agency and other key officials at the board, also desperately fought to save it, but their efforts bore no fruit.
Tonight, NTV investigates has gone deeper into the dissolution and closure of the Kenya Water Towers Agency and reports that in fact, there is more than meets the eye in the decision. NTV'S senior reporter Ibrahim Karanja with that special investigative report, Silencing the Guardians.
January 5, 2025
Gakuru's horrific demise
Dr Patrick Wahome Gakuru had only served as Nyeri’s third governor for 79 days before meeting his horrendous death in a tragic road crash, along the Nyeri-Nairobi highway.
During a public inquest of his shocking death, statements presented by various witnesses painted a picture of how the governor slowly, painfully died, as he remained trapped in his official vehicle with a guard rail piercing through him. He bled profusely, before he was removed from the wreckage, more than thirty minutes later.
His family abandoned the inquest after a conflict arose between them and the director of public prosecutions, over failure to summon five persons of interest who they wanted interrogated. Who were these big five? Why were they crucial witnesses in the inquest, and, why did they object appearing in order to clear the air and state their innocence?Also, how did the late governor have a police impostor as head of security? Why is it that until now, the insurance company, through the Nyeri county government, has not compensated Gakuru’s bodyguard Ahmed Kaib, who survived the crash, but lost his leg through amputation? Here is NTV investigates: Gakuru’s horrific demise - by NTV’s Senior Reporter Duncan Khaemba.
December 29, 2024
Gemstone Heist: Rogue govt officers aiding foreigners to cart away tsavorite
Illegal precious stones traders operating clandestinely in Voi town are making millions, if not billions of shillings, while avoiding taxes as well as license fees.
As NTV's Kevin Mutai reports in the following report dubbed 'gemstone heist', government agencies including the police are part of a well coordinated syndicated that is shipping gemstones from Tsavo leaving locals in Taita Taveta with nothing to show for it.
Lowly paid artisanal miners working in the mine tunnels in Tsavo have died and others sustained also permanent injuries in search of the shiny rocks that fetch handsome cash miles away from home.
December 28, 2024