- UK writer Samantha Harvey wins 2024 Booker with space novel
- US bans flights to Haiti after three jetliners hit by gunfire
- Lincicome ends 20-year LPGA career at hometown event
- Canadian women's coach, two aides out after drone scandal
- Sinner turns aside Fritz to close in on ATP Finals last four
- Global stocks slip as markets take post-US election breather
- UN condemns 'acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes' in Gaza
- US bans flights to Haiti as gang violence rages
- Aga Khan emerald fetches record $9 mn in Geneva auction
- Venezuela crackdown helped avert 'civil war': attorney general
- Trump shapes team ahead of White House return
- Climate cash should also go to nuclear, says UN atomic chief
- Free Facebook in EU with less targeted ads
- Dupont set to be fit for New Zealand despite illness
- New balls, please, plead top men's tennis players
- Ban rules Radradra out of Fiji's final November internationals
- US contractor ordered to pay $42 mn to Iraqis tortured at Abu Ghraib
- Lame-duck US climate team vows to be 'effective' at COP29
- Painter Frank Auerbach, contemporary of Freud and Bacon, dies at 93
- UN carbon market inches closer after COP29 agreement
- US finalizes waste methane fine on drillers, but future uncertain
- Fifteen inmates killed in new Ecuador jail massacre
- Trump tariff worries trip up stocks rally, dollar climbs
- Israel opens Gaza humanitarian crossing but aid groups say not enough
- 35 killed, dozens wounded in south China car ramming
- 'Carbon-neutral' countries demand credit at COP29
- FA investigates Premier League referee Coote over video rant
- Boeing expects post-strike output recovery to take several weeks
- Trump shapes cabinet ahead of White House return
- Blinken in emergency Brussels trip on Ukraine after Trump win
- All Blacks scrum-halves 'inspired' to play 'master' Dupont
- Medvedev sees off De Minaur to boost ATP Finals bid
- Lindt disputes US lawsuit claims, stands by 'excellence' labelling
- Trump tariff worries trip up stocks rally
- UK to beef up its emissions cuts as it bids to be 'climate leader'
- Nations to submit boosted climate plans: what's at stake?
- French footballer Ben Yedder gets suspended jail term for sexual assault
- Nuclear watchdog chief says room to manoeuvre on Iran 'shrinking'
- Russia jails doctor over alleged Ukraine comments during consultation
- EU vessels to cease fishing in Senegal after accord expires
- Bayer shares hit 20-yr low as problems pile up
- Russian MPs pass law banning 'propaganda' of childless lifestyles
- NATO 'must do more than just keep Ukraine in fight', says Rutte
- EU unity in a 'world on fire': Kallas makes top diplomat pitch
- UK vows to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 81% on 1990 levels by 2035
- Crisis-hit Germany headed for February 23 snap election
- C.Africa urges lifting of embargo on diamond exports
- Poland hoping Swiatek can inspire BJK Cup 'revenge' against Spain
- Court challenge begins against UK oil and gas field approvals
- Stock markets retreat on Trump tariff worries
RBGPF | 0.05% | 60.22 | $ | |
BCC | -1.42% | 141.13 | $ | |
NGG | -1.97% | 62.9 | $ | |
CMSC | -0.73% | 24.54 | $ | |
SCS | 0.15% | 13.67 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.85% | 24.75 | $ | |
RYCEF | -2.37% | 7.16 | $ | |
BCE | -0.58% | 27.69 | $ | |
RIO | -2.29% | 61.2 | $ | |
RELX | -2.6% | 46.59 | $ | |
VOD | -10.04% | 8.47 | $ | |
JRI | -2.27% | 13.22 | $ | |
GSK | -2.34% | 35.52 | $ | |
AZN | 0.61% | 65.19 | $ | |
BTI | 0.26% | 35.24 | $ | |
BP | -2.7% | 28.16 | $ |
Submerged homes, heat waves fuel Mexico climate angst
Waves wash over abandoned homes in a Mexican village slowly being swallowed by the sea -- a symbol of the climate change effects being felt by the major fossil fuel producer.
The school where Adrian Perez used to attend classes in the community of El Bosque in the southern state of Tabasco now stands in ruins.
Each time he passes it going fishing, he is reminded of what has been lost to the sea.
"It's hard. I studied there and look at what it became," the 24-year-old said.
"The climate's destroying us," he added.
This year, heat waves have sent temperatures soaring in Tabasco and much of Mexico, stoking the climate change debate as the country prepares for a June 2 presidential election.
According to environmental group Greenpeace, El Bosque is the first community in Mexico to be officially recognized as displaced by climate change.
In February, the Tabasco state congress approved its relocation.
"We hear about climate change all the time but we never thought that it would come to us," said 34-year-old Cristy Echeverria, who lost her home.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, ocean warming as well as the melting of glaciers and ice sheets caused the global sea level to reach its highest point on record last year.
Around 700 people once lived in El Bosque, which sits on a small peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of Mexico and exposed to Atlantic storms and hurricanes.
In the waters offshore, rigs extract the oil and gas on which Latin America's second-largest economy so heavily depends.
Down the coast, the government of outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has built a major new oil refinery in Tabasco, his home state -- part of his efforts to achieve energy self-sufficiency.
- Records melt -
Tabasco is one of the areas of Mexico hit hardest by this year's heat waves, with temperatures in the state reaching 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).
Since March, 48 heat-related death have been registered across the country, according to the government.
Even Mexico City -- whose altitude has traditionally given it a temperate climate -- recorded its highest-ever temperature of 34.7 degrees Celsius on Saturday.
The heat and below-normal rainfall last year have stirred fears of worsening water shortages.
The average annual availability of water per capita in Mexico has already fallen by 68 percent since 1960, according to the Mexican Institute of Competitiveness.
Despite international pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Lopez Obrador has promoted fossil fuel production during his six-year term in a bid to ensure energy independence.
The government says it is offsetting the impact by planting one million hectares of trees, which Lopez Obrador has called "the world's most important reforestation program."
Pablo Ramirez, a climate campaigner at Greenpeace Mexico, warned that there was "no public policy that can address the serious impacts that climate change is having and that are going to get worse."
- Clean energy plans -
Claudia Sheinbaum, the ruling party candidate leading the race to replace Lopez Obrador, has promised to invest billions of dollars in clean energy while also supporting state oil company Pemex.
"We're going to promote the energy transition," said Sheinbaum, a scientist by training who was a contributing author for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Sheinbaum would take a different approach to Lopez Obrador on energy, according to Pamela Starr, a professor at the University of Southern California.
"She's going to encourage much more active investment in clean energy," Starr told AFP.
Opposition presidential candidate Xochitl Galvez has said that Mexico needs "to end our addiction to fossil fuels" and proposed to close some refineries.
The campaign promises give little comfort to Echeverria.
"We're not responsible for everything that's happening, but we're paying for it," she said.
"We're not going to be the only ones."
J.Horn--BTB