The coastal desert of Colombia’s La Guajira state is a world away from Kyoto, the temperate Japanese city where representatives of 159 countries in 1997 signed the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouses gases. The Caribbean laps against rickety settlements. Herds of goats range across scorching sands. Months, whole years, pass without rain. But Kyoto is well known to the inhabitants of La Guajira. A utility company called Empresas Públicas de Medellín is about to start building a $23-million wind farm in the territory of local Wayuu Indians. To do so, it will use $3.2 million from the World Bank’s Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF), an investment vehicle for governments and companies in Europe and Japan. The PCF investment arrives thanks to a provision of the... [Log in to read more]