EL BOSQUE, Mexico (AP) — People moved to El Bosque in the 1980s to fish. Fishermen set out for the Gulf of Mexico in groups of three and four and returned with buckets of tarpon and long, striped snook. There was enough to feed them and establish a community; three schools, a small church and a basketball court on the sand.
Then climate change brought the sea across the town.
Flooding caused by some of the world’s fastest sea level rises and increasingly severe winter storms has all but destroyed El Bosque, leaving piles of concrete and twisted metal rods where homes once littered the sand. The local people, who had to flee the houses they built, are waiting for help from the state and living in rents they cannot afford.
The UN climate summit, known as COP28, finally agreed this month on a multimillion-dollar loss and damage fund to help developing countries cope with global warming. It will be too late for El Bosque, caught between Mexico’s economically vital national oil company and the environmental danger it fuels.
A rusted sign at the entrance to the town states that more than 700 people lived in El Bosque two years ago. Now there are almost a dozen. Among these numbers lie the remnants of a lost community. In the old, reinforced concrete fishing cooperative, one of the few remaining intact buildings, huge, vault-like refrigerators have become makeshift storage units for items left behind by families (paintings, furniture, the Guinness World Records 3 DVD).
Guadalupe Cobos is one of the few people still living in El Bosque. Diabetic invents a cooler for his insulin every time a flood cuts out the power. Sitting face to face with the waves on a recent afternoon, Cobos said residents’ relationship with the sea is “like a toxic marriage.”
“I love you when you’re happy, right? And when I’m angry, I take away everything I give you,” he said.
According to the Mayors’ Council on Immigration, a coalition that studies internal Mexican migration, up to 8 million Mexicans will be displaced by floods, droughts, storms and landslides caused by climate change over the next three decades.
Along with rapidly rising water levels, winter storms called “nortes” have consumed more than a third (500 meters) of land since 2005, according to Lilia Gama, an ecology professor and coastal vulnerability researcher at Juarez State University of Tabasco.
“Previously, when a norte arrived, it would take a day or two,” said Gama, sitting above the university’s alligator enclosure. “The tide would come in, it would rise a little bit, and it would go away.”
Winter storms now last several days, trapping El Bosque’s few remaining natives in their homes if not evacuated early enough. A warming climate causes more frequent storms as ultra-cold polar air crashes, and storms last longer, fueled by warmer air that can then hold more moisture.
Local scientists say another strong storm could completely destroy El Bosque. The move is still months away, slowed by bureaucracy and lack of funding.
As the sun set on the beach, Cobos, known to her neighbors as Doña Lupe, pointed to a dozen small, orange stars on the horizon; oil platforms were burning the gas they could not capture.
“There’s money here,” he said, “but it’s not for us.”
As El Bosque settled, state-owned oil company Pemex embarked on an exploration spree in the Gulf; It tripled crude oil production and turned Mexico into a major international exporter.
As the international community cries for countries to reduce their use of fossil fuels, the single most important cause of climate change, Mexico plans to open a new refinery next year in its largest oil-producing state, just 80 kilometers west of El Bosque. .
Sea levels in the Gulf of Mexico are already rising three times faster than the global average, according to a study co-authored this March by researchers from the United Kingdom’s National Oceanography Center and universities in New Orleans, Florida, and California.
This stark difference is partly due to changing circulation patterns in the Atlantic as the ocean warms and expands.
The acceleration also strengthened massive coastal storms like hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, doubling flood records from the Gulf to Florida, researchers said.
“In the 10 years before the acceleration, you may have had a period in which the sea level rose quite slowly. So people might have had a sense of security along the coastline, and then the acceleration could kick in. And everything is changing very quickly,” said lead scientist Sönke Dangendorf.
When mother of two Eglisa Arias Arias moved to El Bosque alone, she experienced the excitement of having her own garden for the first time and was rarely disturbed by the sea. His home was flooded in the Nov. 3 storm, and he rented an apartment a short drive inland.
“I missed everything. I missed all the noise of the sea. I’m talking about the noise of this sea,” he said.
Coastal areas known as the Emerald Coast in the state of Veracruz are damaged by the storm, flooded and falling into the sea. A quarter of the neighboring state of Tabasco will be under water by 2050, according to a study.
Around the world, coastal communities facing similar slow-motion battles with water have begun to overcome what is called “managed retreat.” Locals on Quebec’s Gaspé peninsula have been slowly fleeing the coast for more than a decade, and just last year the New Zealand government promised financial aid for some of the 70,000 homes it said would soon need to seek higher ground.
But little seems to have been accomplished in the retreat from El Bosque. When the Xolo family fled their home on November 21 at midnight, all 10 children were trapped under a tarpaulin in the pouring rain.
Now they practice math on an app. In the carcass of El Bosque’s elementary school, attendance books still lie on the floor with soggy pages, and alphabet cutouts are stuck to the wall in the kindergarten.
First, Áurea Sanchez, matriarch of the Xolo family, took her family to a shelter inland at the local recreation center. Then, a few days later, an unannounced transport van arrived to remove the centre’s only refrigerator, and the shelter was closed.
“No way,” Sanchez remembers thinking. “They can’t leave us without food without telling us, can they?”
In the afternoon, an official came and announced that it was closed.
When The Associated Press visited El Bosque in late November, a moderate storm had flooded the only road into the neighborhood, so it could only be reached on foot or by motorcycle. The same day the shelter was closed, apparently permanently, with its windows covered with paper and a government sign reading “8 steps to protect your health in case of floods”.
The national housing department, which is responsible for running the shelter, did not respond when asked why the shelter was closed or if it would reopen.
Meanwhile, the new homes will not be ready before autumn 2024, according to Raúl García, head of Tabasco’s urban development department, adding: “I wish we could do this faster.”
Lawyers and García himself have said the process is too slow and Mexico needs new laws to cut through red tape and quickly provide money to climate change victims. Mexico has a fund for climate adaptation, but in 2024 most of that fund will be spent on a train project that has already been widely criticized for destroying parts of the Yucatan forest.
Instead, President Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador, who was born just a few hours inland, has made oil development a key part of his nationalist platform. That could change if the polls are accurate and former Mexico City Mayor and accomplished scientist Claudia Sheinbaum is elected president next year. Even though he is under the auspices of Lopéz Obrador, he has pledged to commit Mexico to sustainability, a promise that is more urgent than ever.
Since running away from her home on Nov. 3, Arias has spent some afternoons with her nephew, helping neighbors with the dishes or baking upside-down pineapple cake with them. These are welcome distractions from the daily negotiations between buying food and paying the rent.
But even more difficult are his memories of El Bosque and his home by the waves.
“I was sleeping listening to the sound of the sea and waking up with that sound, that sound. I would always hear her voices and so when I would talk to her I would tell her that I knew I would miss you because with that noise you taught me how to love you.”
When the flood came to Arias’ house, he asked the sea for just enough time to gather his belongings, and the sea gave it to him.
“And when I left there I said goodbye to the sea. I thanked him for the time he was there for me.