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When I started reporting in Latin America almost 14 years ago, the main drivers of forced migration were gang violence and state-sponsored repression. Back then, even though subsistence farmers had begun to notice changes in rainfall patterns, most Global North governments were still acting like climate change was something that might hurt them in the future. How times change, and as we launch our new series on climate displacement in Latin America, the scariest thing for me is how fast things have gone to shit—and how our political leaders have utterly failed us.
Displaced (Desplazado) has in some ways, been almost a decade in the making. That’s how long I’ve been reporting from communities across the Americas hit by devastating climate impacts including drought, floods, extreme heat, sea level rise, and wildfires. During this time, I’ve also followed the UN climate negotiations, attending multiple COP summits like the one taking place in Türkiye right now, where frontline communities including peasant farmers, young people living next to fracking rigs, and Indigenous peoples have struggled to have their experiences and solutions taken seriously, while fossil fuel companies and other polluting industries have been given seats at the negotiating table.
I joined Drilled in January in part because of the commitment to this reporting, despite our tiny team and limited resources. I am absolutely knackered after six months straight on this project, but ever so proud to launch Displaced (Desplazado), a narrative podcast and print series about three communities in Latin America confronting different stages of climate displacement.
Across Latin America climate breakdown is uprooting communities. Clockwise from left: Tabasco, Mexico, La Guajira, Colombia, and Chiquimula, Guatemala. Credit: Daniele Volpe
The first story is from Tabasco in southern Mexico, a state that is both an epicenter of fossil fuel extraction and one that, according to some climate models, will become uninhabitable by the end of the century due to sea level rise, coastal erosion, and flooding. Here, I spent time with the residents of El Bosque, a fishing community which was the first in Mexico to be officially recognized as climate displaced. At the end of 2024, the state relocated some of the fisher families to a newly built community inland, called Nuevo Bosque. But the sea and fishing were a core part of their livelihoods and identity, and, two years on, many are struggling to adapt. El Bosque is a prima facie case of loss and damage, a real life example of what delays in mitigation and climate adaptation action being discussed at COP31 looks like.
Next week, we’ll launch two more print stories: one from Indigenous Maya Ch’orti’ territory in Guatemala’s Dry Corridor, where years of drought forced thousands of farmers to risk everything to try and reach the US, to save their kids from starvation. Here, the US is omnipresent—in the climate change driving forced migration, the delays in climate action, and cruel deportation policies. Maya Ch’orti’ communities have come up with cheap adaptation solutions, but access to international climate finance is either inaccessible or so painfully slow that it could come too late to save the Dry Corridor. The final story in the series is from Wayuu territory in the La Guajira peninsula, a semi-arid region in northeast Colombia. Reporting this story blew my mind. The Wayuu have resisted and adapted to all sorts of threats and challenges ever since colonial settlers arrived. But now, every part of the fossil fuel life cycle—the coal and gas extraction happening on their territory, the drought and coastal erosion caused by burning them, and even the proposed wind and solar solutions—is pushing the Wayuu’s ability to adapt to the brink. They are fighting for the right to remain on their ancestral homeland.
For those of you who prefer audio storytelling, next week (November 17th) we will also launch a three-part podcast series, which features additional stories and analysis from the three communities. My narration is in English, but you’ll also hear the community members’ and local experts’ voices in their original Spanish. I hope hearing their emotion and conviction will help you connect to their struggles and desire for climate justice.
Displaced brings together a lot of firsts for Drilled. It is our first multimedia series laser-focused on climate justice, reported and produced in Spanish and English. It’s the first time Drilled has invested so heavily in photojournalism, because we understand the need to find new ways to connect with people. We’re currently working on exhibits of photographer Daniele Volpe’s black and white photos with audio clips for next year that we hope to take back to each country where we reported, and beyond.
Displaced also illustrates why it’s so important to center communities and climate justice alongside Drilled’s longstanding investigative reporting priorities—climate obstruction and the repression of civil society—because they are all part of the same climate accountability story. During the six years I spent reporting in the U.S., I met a depressingly large number of people who didn’t believe in climate change, many of whom were directly impacted by it. This included folks in North Carolina who had literally watched their house float down a river after Hurricane Helene and others in Arizona who’d lost a relative to extreme heat. They were victims of climate change and victims of climate disinformation and misinformation peddled by the fossil fuel industry and its enablers on TV, radio, social media, and from the pulpit.
Meanwhile, Latin America remains the deadliest region in the world for environmental and land rights defenders, and attacks against Indigenous and other community leaders trying to protect their shoreline, river, or forest from fossil fuel projects—and so-called green solutions like commercial wind farms, lithium mines, and carbon credit schemes—are surging. At Drilled, we are trying to help connect all these dots.
If you enjoy this series, please support us by becoming a member or donating to Drilled. This sort of in-depth community focused reporting costs a lot of money, and we would really appreciate your contribution.
| Today on The Spill |
| Drilled’s Australia reporter Royce Kurmelovs gives us the scoop on this year’s COP: why the “electrification” campaign is failing, Türkiye’s oil announcement on the sidelines, and the rightwing journalists trying to “gotcha” European ministers for drinking free coffee. |
This Week’s Climate Must-reads |
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| [Report] “Big Polluters with Most Egregious Records of Stalling Climate Policy Bring Over 100 Delegations to COP31 Global Climate Talks,” Kick Big Polluters Out coalition Amazon, JBS, Blackrock, ExxonMobil, and the International Emissions Trading Association are among the major polluters roaming the corridors at Cop31. It’s not just the usual Big Oil suspects who are given access to the UN climate talks—lobbyists from 30 banks which account for $2.2 trillion in fossil fuel financing from 2021 to 2025 are also in Türkiye |
| [Investigation] “TotalEnergies Official Coordinated with Trump to Delay EU Methane Rules,” DeSmog and EU Observer TotalEnergies sent one of its former executives to work for the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers, a lobbying group, where he sought to delay the EU’s methane regulation, according to reporting by DeSmog and EU Observer. Starting in 2018, TotalEnergies’ former vice president of gas advocacy, François-Régis Mouton, was assigned to work with the industry group, coordinating open letters and holding dozens of meetings with Brussels policymakers. |
| [Report] “Fossilflation: How Fossil Fuel Prices Drive Inflation,” Greenpeace Germany Greenpeace Germany’s latest report gives a detailed and data-based account of how fossil fuel dominance is exacerbating inflation. The U.S. and Israel’s illegal war on Iran, for example, is responsible for at least 75 percent of inflation, while also contributing to oil majors’ record profits. |
| [Reportage] “‘Our Neighbors are Gone:’ Gaza Survivors Recount Horrors of Deadly Floods,” Al Jazeera Nowhere is the link between war, occupation and climate change as stark as Gaza right now, where Palestinians, forced to live in encampments by Israel’s ongoing genocide, are being flooded by heavy rain and sewage. |
| [Report] “New Data Reveal Weakening Emissions Reporting Amid Rising Military Spending,” Conflict and Environment Observatory The military emissions gap is growing as military spending surges in countries including Türkiye, Australia, the U.S., China, Israel, Russia, India, the UK, and Germany. Military-related greenhouse gases are estimated to account for at least 5.5 percent of global emissions in peacetime, yet states are still not required to report them to the UNFCCC. |
| [Investigation] “The Garbage Man: Bill Gates Has Earned Billions Investing in Climate-Polluting Landfills,” ProPublica Bill Gates spent years touting billions in investments in climate solutions. All that time, according to a new report by ProPublica, he was the biggest shareholder in the second-largest landfill operator in the U.S., a company that “generates as much climate pollution as 3 million gasoline-burning cars each year.” |
| [News] “New Bill Slashes Tribes’ Role in Projects that Impact Ancestral Sites, Water and Wildlife” High Country News The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act is designed to speed up permitting processes for all kinds of infrastructure: solar and wind farms but also fossil fuel infrastructure and data centers. Indigenous nations and organizations are ringing major alarm bells over provisions that would gut laws requiring tribal consultation for projects that impact Indigenous land, water, and sacred places. The Native American Rights Fund has asserted that recent revisions failed to resolv fundamental issues with the legislation. |
