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Submerged Homes, Heat Waves Fuel Mexico Climate Angst

Homes destroyed by the sea are seen in the community of El Bosque in southern Mexico. Yuri CORTEZ / AFP
Homes destroyed by the sea are seen in the community of El Bosque in southern Mexico. Yuri CORTEZ / AFP
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Submerged Homes, Heat Waves Fuel Mexico Climate Angst

Homes destroyed by the sea are seen in the community of El Bosque in southern Mexico. Yuri CORTEZ / AFP
Homes destroyed by the sea are seen in the community of El Bosque in southern Mexico. Yuri CORTEZ / AFP

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, AFP said.
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."

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Varieties

Sudan's Historic Acacia Forest Devastated as War Fuels Logging

Little is left of the once sprawling acacia forest south of Sudan's capital. Ebrahim Hamid / AFP
Little is left of the once sprawling acacia forest south of Sudan's capital. Ebrahim Hamid / AFP
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Sudan's Historic Acacia Forest Devastated as War Fuels Logging

Little is left of the once sprawling acacia forest south of Sudan's capital. Ebrahim Hamid / AFP
Little is left of the once sprawling acacia forest south of Sudan's capital. Ebrahim Hamid / AFP

Vast stretches of a once-verdant acacia forest south of Sudan's capital Khartoum have been reduced to little more than fields of stumps as nearly three years of conflict have fueled deforestation.

What was once a 1,500-hectare natural reserve has been "completely wiped out", Boushra Hamed, head of environmental affairs for Khartoum state, told AFP.

Al-Sunut forest had long served as a haven for migratory birds and a vital green shield against the Nile's seasonal floods.

"During the war, Khartoum state has lost 60 percent of its green cover," Hamed said, describing how century-old trees "were cut down with electric saws" for commercial timber and charcoal production.

Where tall acacias once cast cool shade over a wetland just upstream from the confluence of the Blue and White Nile, barren ground now lies exposed, criss-crossed by people gathering whatever wood remains.

Hamed called it "methodical destruction", though the perpetrators remain unknown and there has been no investigation.

Similar devastation is unfolding across several regions -- including western Darfur, neighboring Kordofan and the central states of Sennar and Al-Jazirah -- as insecurity and economic collapse drive unchecked logging, according to Sudan's Forests National Corporation.

According to a 2019 study by the Nairobi-based African Forest Forum, Sudan had already lost nearly half of its forested land since 1960 due to agricultural expansion, firewood collection and overgrazing.

By 2015, the country ranked among Africa's least forested nations, with around 10 percent of its territory still covered by woodland, the study said.

The report had also warned of further degradation if reforestation and sustainable management efforts were not implemented -- concerns now compounded by the ongoing conflict.

- 'Barrier' -

Aboubakr Al-Tayeb, who oversees Khartoum's forestry administration, said the damage "affects not only Khartoum, but Sudan and the wider African continent."

"The forest was home to several migratory species from Europe," he told AFP.

More than a hundred bird species, including ducks, geese, terns, ibis, herons, eagles and vultures, had been recorded in the area, alongside monkeys and small mammals.

Al-Nazir Ali Babiker, an agronomist, said the loss of tree cover could cause more severe seasonal flooding because the "forest acted as a barrier" against rising waters.

Flooding strikes Sudan every year, destroying homes, farmland and infrastructure and leaving many families with no choice but to flee to safer areas.

The war in Sudan, which erupted in April 2023, has already killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and shattered critical infrastructure.

Before the fighting, forests supplied roughly 70 percent of Sudan's energy consumption, primarily through charcoal and firewood, according to data from the African Forest Forum.

Al-Sunut had also been a popular leisure spot for Khartoum residents.

"We used to come in groups to study and have a good time," recalls Adam Hafiz Ibrahim, a student at Omdurman Islamic University.

Today, wood gatherers have supplanted the usual walkers. Disregarding army notices alerting them to landmines, men and women traverse the dry, open ground that now stands where the ancient forest once grew.

"We're not cutting the trees. We just pick up whatever wood's already on the ground to use for the fire," said Nafisa, a woman in her forties navigating the dry grasslands.

"We found the trees down. We collect the wood to sell to bakeries and families," said Mohamed Zakaria, a construction worker who lost his job because of the war.

Experts say that the economic hardship caused by the war combined with a lack of enforcement has encouraged logging.

"The logging continues, because those responsible for forest protection cannot access many areas," said Mousa el-Sofori, head of Sudan's Forests National Corporation.

Efforts to replant acacias are underway, Tayeb of the Khartoum forestry administration said, but seedlings grow slowly and can take years to mature.

Restoring the lost woodlands would be "long and costly", said Sofori.

"Some of these forests were centuries old," he added.

Varieties

Coffee Regions Hit by Extra Days of Extreme Heat, Say Scientists 

17 April 2012, North Rhine-Westphalia, Vluyn: A general view of Arabica Coffee beans. (dpa)
17 April 2012, North Rhine-Westphalia, Vluyn: A general view of Arabica Coffee beans. (dpa)
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Coffee Regions Hit by Extra Days of Extreme Heat, Say Scientists 

17 April 2012, North Rhine-Westphalia, Vluyn: A general view of Arabica Coffee beans. (dpa)
17 April 2012, North Rhine-Westphalia, Vluyn: A general view of Arabica Coffee beans. (dpa)

The world's main coffee-growing regions are roasting under additional days of climate change-driven heat every year, threatening harvests and contributing to higher prices, researchers said Wednesday.

An analysis found that there were 47 extra days of harmful heat per year on average in 25 countries representing nearly all global coffee production between 2021 and 2025, according to independent research group Climate Central.

Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Ethiopia and Indonesia -- which supply 75 percent of the world's coffee -- experienced on average 57 additional days of temperatures exceeding the threshold of 30C.

"Climate change is coming for our coffee. Nearly every major coffee-producing country is now experiencing more days of extreme heat that can harm coffee plants, reduce yields, and affect quality," said Kristina Dahl, Climate Central's vice president for science.

"In time, these impacts may ripple outward from farms to consumers, right into the quality and cost of your daily brew," Dahl said in a statement.

US tariffs on imports from Brazil, which supplies a third of coffee consumed in the United States, contributed to higher prices this past year, Climate Central said.

But extreme weather in the world's coffee-growing regions is "at least partly to blame" for the recent surge in prices, it added.

Coffee cultivation needs optimal temperatures and rainfall to thrive.

Temperatures above 30C are "extremely harmful" to arabica coffee plants and "suboptimal" for the robusta variety, Climate Central said. Those two plant species produce the majority of the global coffee supply.

For its analysis, Climate Central estimated how many days each year would have stayed below 30C in a world without carbon pollution but instead exceeded that level in reality -- revealing the number of hot days added by climate change.

The last three years have been the hottest on record, according to climate monitors.

Varieties

Dog Gives Olympics Organizers Paws for Thought

A dog wanders on the ski trail during the women's team cross country free sprint qualification event of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games at Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium in Lago di Tesero (Val di Fiemme), on February 18, 2026. (Photo by Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP)
A dog wanders on the ski trail during the women's team cross country free sprint qualification event of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games at Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium in Lago di Tesero (Val di Fiemme), on February 18, 2026. (Photo by Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP)
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Dog Gives Olympics Organizers Paws for Thought

A dog wanders on the ski trail during the women's team cross country free sprint qualification event of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games at Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium in Lago di Tesero (Val di Fiemme), on February 18, 2026. (Photo by Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP)
A dog wanders on the ski trail during the women's team cross country free sprint qualification event of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games at Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium in Lago di Tesero (Val di Fiemme), on February 18, 2026. (Photo by Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP)

A dog decided he would bid for an unlikely Olympic medal on Wednesday as he joined the women's cross country team free sprint in the Milan-Cortina Games.

The dog ran onto the piste in Tesero in northern Italy and gamely, even without skis, ran behind two of the competitors, Greece's Konstantina Charalampidou and Tena Hadzic of Croatia.

He crossed the finishing line, his moment of glory curtailed as he was collared by the organizers and led away -- his owner no doubt will have a bone to pick with him when they are reunited.