Vanishing shores: This is the impact of rising sea levels in Guinea-Bissau

“The sea keeps coming towards us. The fields have been ruined by the seawater. Land is getting smaller and many people have abandoned the village. One day, I will have to make a decision to abandon this house too.”

These are words of 70-year-old Aghoti Sanhan, murmuring from a dimly lit room in her coastal shabby, grass-floored house without electricity or running water.

“I never thought this would happen in my long life,” she continued before slumping into silence.

This March, I visited Guinea-Bissau, one of West Africa’s poorest countries, reporting on the climate crisis’s impact on people living in low-altitude coastal areas. Thousands live on West Africa’s coasts, harnessing a semi-farming and semi-fishing lifestyle.

Since the turn of the century, rising sea levels impact in Guinea-Bissau due to global warming, heavy rain and storm surges have increased in scale, becoming more apparent and driving residents into severe poverty.

Guinea-Bissau is over 36,000,000 square kilometres. Of its approximately 2.1 million people, 70% are poor, living on a daily income of less than $1.90.

After a five-hour drive from the capital, Bissau, past several towns and two hours in a metal boat, I reached the coastal village of Djobel, a marshy area.

Villagers earn a living by catching fish and oysters and growing rice and other crops on the little land around the intricate waterways and in the thick mangrove forests.

However, the village is now on the verge of extinction due to the rising sea levels impact in Guinea-Bissau.

“About 20 years ago, the climate and the sea started to change drastically,” said village head Baciro Nango, “The way the sea has spread is incredible.

“During the rainy season, the whole village sinks underwater. Most of the rice fields and farmland have been ruined and there is only a little useful land left.

“The farmland that was newly cultivated last year was also destroyed by this year’s floods. Sooner or later, this village will be ruined. There is no hope for us.”

Drinking water is the biggest issue, another consequence of the rising sea levels impact in Guinea-Bissau. Until recently, fresh water was available from the village well but five years ago, seawater started entering it, making the water unpotable. The effort to bring water from the nearest village – four hours away by boat – fell on the villagers’ shoulders, especially women and children.

Looking out into the sea to a scattering of small islands where the tide has started to rise, Baciro points to a dilapidated and abandoned house standing perilously close to the water’s surface.

Walking through the village, plenty of land was no longer usable, covered in a blanket of pure white salt, while most farmland showed no signs of crops growing on it. Seawater was also breaking through the fill and entering the fields.

Baciro took us to another abandoned house on a small island not far from his home. The remains of a wooden fence on a brown fill and a mud wall left at the top of the fill suggest that people once lived here. A child’s small black t-shirt and pieces of broken crockery were half buried in the soil underfoot.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global sea levels have already risen by about 20 centimetres on average from 1900 to the present.

Rising temperatures and the melting of ice and snow, including glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland etc. have caused seawater to expand.

Even if significant emission reductions are achieved, such as limiting temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the sea level could rise another 50 centimetres by the end of the century or nearly one meter if emissions are high.

Considering the collapse of the Antarctic ice sheet, the sea level is estimated to rise by more than 1.5 metres.

Furthermore, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), sea level rise has been accelerating in recent years, from an average of 1.9 millimetres annually between 1971 and 2006 to more than double to 4.5 millimetres between 2001 and 2010.

The IPCC has indicated that even if emissions are controlled, sea level rise will continue after 2100 and could rise by 7 metres by 2300 in some cases and by 15 metres if the Antarctic ice sheet is destabilized.

Current sea level rise has only just begun, as WMO’s former Director-General Petteri Taalas said in a previous interview with me: “Sea level will continue to rise for a long time, posing a major risk to the livelihoods and economies of people around the world. We are losing the battle against sea level rise.”

A small hope for the village of Djobel was to relocate inland. With the support of the UN, the Government of Guinea-Bissau planned to relocate the villagers to land less affected by sea level rise.

However, residents of two villages on either side of the planned resettlement site opposed this plan, leading to conflict between the three villages, including Djobel, and resulting in some deaths.

Water supply facilities and dwellings built by the UN on the proposed resettlement site were destroyed overnight by the opponents and now lie in ruins in the grass. The plan, which was the slightest hope of the Djobel people, remains frustrated.

Joao Tchedna, primary director general of the National Environment Institute of Guinea-Bissau, said, “We have very little technology or money to deal with the impact of the climate crisis. The damage is already irreversible.

“Developed countries should contribute sufficient funds to the Fund for Loss and Damages under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and intensify their efforts to save the lives of people in poor countries.”

According to the UN, Guinea-Bissau’s annual greenhouse gas emissions are only 0.09% of the global total. Among them, the emissions of the Djobel people, I believe, are almost zero.

The first people to be severely affected by the climate crisis caused by people in developed countries are people like the villagers of Djobel, who hardly emit any greenhouse gases. This enormous injustice shows us the importance of achieving “climate justice” in the international community as soon as possible.