Mexico - The last residents of a coastal Mexican town destroyed by climate change

‍

Flooding driven by some of the world’s fastest sea-level rise and by increasingly brutal winter storms has all but destroyed El Bosque, leaving twisted piles of concrete where houses used to line the sand. Forced to flee the homes they built, locals are waiting for government aid in rentals they can scarcely afford.

The U.N. 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 come too late for the people of El Bosque, but by 2050 millions more Mexicans will be displaced by climate change, according to the Mayors Migration Council, a coalition researching internal migration.

Just two years ago over 700 people lived in El Bosque; barely a dozen are left.

Between those numbers lie the relics of a lost community. At one of the few solid buildings left — the old, concrete fishing cooperative — enormous, vault-like refrigerators have become makeshift storage units for belongings left behind.

Guadalupe Cobos is one of the few still living in El Bosque. Residents’ relationship with the sea is “like a toxic marriage,” Cobos said, sitting facing the waves on a recent afternoon.

“I love you when I’m happy, right? And when I’m angry I take away everything that I gave you,” she said.

Along with rapidly rising water levels, winter storms called “nortes” have eaten more than one-third of a mile (500 meters) inland since 2005, according to Lilia Gama, coastal vulnerability researcher at Tabasco Juarez State University.

“Before, if a norte came in, it lasted one or two days,” said Gama. “The tide would come in, it would go up a little bit and it would go away.”

Now, fueled by warming air which can hold more moisture, winter storms stay for several days at a time.

Local scientists say one more powerful storm could destroy El Bosque for good. Relocation, slowed by bureaucracy and a lack of funding, is still months away.

As the sun sets over the beach, Cobos, known as Doña Lupe to neighbors, points to a dozen small, orange stars on the line of the horizon — oil platforms burning off gas.

“There is money here,” she says, “but not for us.”

As El Bosque was settled, state oil company Pemex went on an exploration spree in the Gulf — tripling crude oil production and making Mexico into a major international exporter. Now Mexico plans to open a new refinery in Tabasco, just 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of El Bosque.

Gulf of Mexico sea levels are already rising three times faster than the global average, according to a study co-authored by researchers from the United Kingdom, New Orleans, Florida and California this March.

The stark difference is partly caused by changing circulation patterns in the Atlantic as the ocean warms and expands.

Swathes of the coast known as the Emerald Coast in the state of Veracruz are storm-battered, flooded and falling into the sea, and a quarter of neighboring Tabasco state will be inundated by 2050, according to one study.

Around the world, facing similar slow-motion battles with the water, coastal communities from Quebec to New Zealand have begun beating a “managed retreat.”

Very little, however, seems managed about the retreat from El Bosque. When the Xolo family fled their home on Nov. 21, they left in the middle of the night, all 10 children under a tarpaulin in pouring rain.