A seawall stretches for hundreds of miles along the coast of Guyana, in northern South America. It protects the low-lying coastal lands where the majority of Guyana''s population lives. The region is acutely threatened by rising sea levels, as well as other symptoms of climate change, yet Guyana is embracing the oil industry. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption
GEORGETOWN, Guyana – For more than a century, a wide, low seawall has protected the country of Guyana from the depravations of the Atlantic Ocean.
Today, the weathered old seawall is a cheerful place. Vendors sell beer and coconut water, blasting local radio stations as they look out over muddy waters. Kids play, couples flirt. Exhausted workers catch a cool breeze after another 90-degree day in the capital city of Georgetown.
Already, high tides periodically wash over the top of the seawall. Left: Brian Pramo believes the government will make the seawall higher. The only alternative is to swim, he jokes. Right: Owen Stewart and Sherman John sit near the seawall. Stewart is optimistic that oil development will help Guyana. "The natives [are] not getting anything off of the oil as yet," he says, "but it''s in process." Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption
Hamer has seen the climate models. In the worst-case scenario, they predict that rising sea levels would eventually reach far inland and this capital city would be completely submerged.
Climate expert Seon Hamer, a lecturer at the University of Guyana, is familiar with the scientific data showing Guyana''s rapid sea level rise. He''s also seen it firsthand. When he fished along the seawall as a boy, it was rare for high tides to spill over the wall. Now it''s a much more frequent event. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption
Climate change is causing catastrophes worldwide, but for Guyana, which is one of the poorest countries in South America, the risks are especially existential.
Nonetheless, the country is hitching its future to the same fossil fuels that are accelerating climate change.
By the latest estimates, there could be more than 10 billion barrels beneath Guyana''s waters, providing a potential windfall to its citizens. That''s bigger than Mexico''s proven reserves — for a country with a tiny fraction of Mexico''s population.
So Guyana is emerging as the world''s newest oil producer at a time when world leaders are under pressure to reduce their countries'' reliance on oil, coal and natural gas, one of the main objectives at the COP26 talks in Glasgow, Scotland.
Dusk near Georgetown''s seawall offers a respite from the heat of the day. Singer Jackie Jaxx (top right) has written a song inspired by the muddy waters near Georgetown, which are dark with sediment carried from the inland rainforests. "Guyana is really special to us who live here," she says. "You know what I mean? We write songs about her." Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption
The seawall that stretches along Guyana''s coast can be traced back to Dutch colonizers, who reclaimed the low-lying, marshy plains to expand their land.
Guyana later became a British territory (today, it''s the only English-speaking country in South America). But Dutch ghosts allegedly still wander their old settlements — and the Dutch decision to reclaim this land from the sea is haunting modern-day residents.
Guyana''s Indigenous minority is concentrated far inland, but most of the population, largely descended from enslaved Africans and indentured people from India, live along the coast. Their lands are kept dry through an aging network of drainage canals and a system of sea defenses.
Guyana is under increasingly dire threat: Waters are rising several times faster than the global average, and already, high tides periodically sweep over the top of the seawall, while salt water is contaminating wells near the coast.
Commuters land at a port near Stabroek Market in Georgetown. The seawall that stretches along Guyana''s coast can be traced back to Dutch colonizers, who reclaimed the low-lying, marshy plains to expand their land. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption
"We''ve seen a lot more high-intensity, short-duration rainfall," says Garvin Cummings, the head of Guyana''s Hydrometeorological Service.
That shift in rain patterns is overwhelming Guyana''s drainage systems, with calamitous results.
This summer, unprecedented floods left farmlands along Mahaica and Mahaicony creeks under feet of water for months. Surendra Kiritpal (left) poured his money into his fields before the flood hit and can''t afford to replant. Haripaul Bhagwamdeo (center) lost 20 cattle and all his fruit trees. Talesh Gerjah (right) called the flood an eye-opener. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption
Because of the flooding, Gagatnarine Ganpat had to move his animals to higher ground but still lost many of them from the shock of switching their feeding habits. He called the flood a "terrible, terrible water." For months, he said, "You just sit. See if you can catch fish. You can''t do nothing — watch the water only." Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption
"We wake up, like, 5 o''clock in the morning and there was the water, rising, rising," says Chandroutie Persaud, who lives in Wash Clothes, a farming community southeast of the capital city, along Mahaicony Creek.
Her family laid boards around inside their home and around their yard, lifting possessions up higher and higher, day after day.
Finally, they declared defeat. Persaud and her husband abandoned the first floor of their home; their son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren moved to a shelter.
Chandroutie Persaud lived in a home with a flooded first floor for months. "Imagine, I used to wear long boots to go to my washroom," she says. It destroyed much of her home garden, as well as a season of rice and cash crops. "We carry great losses," she says. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption
Polly Persaud, Chandroutie''s daughter-in-law, lived for two weeks in knee-high water before moving with her children into a shelter. Here, she sits on one of the many structures she fashioned to hold things above the water. She and her husband would take turns watching the floodwaters, never sleeping at the same time, to make sure they didn''t rise more. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption
Rice fields turned into ponds, deeper than a 6-foot-tall man could stand in. Livestock sickened and died and rotted in the waters. Fruit trees, cultivated carefully for years, drowned. And those waters stayed, not for days or for weeks, but for months — up to four months in some areas.
Four months of getting around by boat, relying on donated food to survive and staring out at the water destroying your livelihood.
"What gone done gone," says Vadim Harikrishna Indarpaul, a contractor and home farmer who lives nearby. "There''s nothing we could have saved."
The overwhelming flooding just lasted too long, he says. "It was really cruel to us," he says. "Really, really."
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