内容摘要：The first couple places were demoralizing: I walked in, was told it’d be $7,000 for the “best” option (they mysteriously didn’t happen to have any other options handy), then marched right back out the door, utterly discouraged.

The first couple places were demoralizing: I walked in, was told it’d be $7,000 for the “best” option (they mysteriously didn’t happen to have any other options handy), then marched right back out the door, utterly discouraged.

An Indigenous woman from the Wayuu community cooks near her baby as wind turbines operate in the distance on the outskirts of Cabo de la Vela, Colombia, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia, File)For Samuel Lanao, head of La Guajira’s environmental authority, the main reason several licensed renewable energy projects are being sold off is because companies struggle with deep-rooted social tensions, particularly during the prior consultation process with local Indigenous communities. Lanao said confrontations have emerged between firms and residents, derailing expectations of development.

“This has been a major blow to La Guajira,” he said, “as there were high hopes for economic and social progress through these projects.”, a seminomadic Indigenous group in the arid La Guajira region of northern Colombia and Venezuela, remain divided over wind energy development. While some have welcomed the economic support offered by companies building turbines on their ancestral lands, many others have raised concerns over environmental and cultural impacts, and a lack of meaningful prior consultation, in what is one of Colombia’s poorest regions.Diego Patron, manager of the Jemeiwaa Ka’I wind project, a large-scale wind farm cluster in La Guajira, acknowledged the pioneering nature of Colombia’s early wind efforts, which began in a regulatory vacuum without clear institutional frameworks.

“These foundational projects faced a steep institutional and territorial learning curve, resulting in the loss of key strategic projects,” Patron said. “However, their legacy now forms the cornerstone for new initiatives.”Patron believes that barriers around legitimate Wayuu community representation, environmental permitting, and contract resolutions have been overcome, creating more stable conditions.”

Patron said misinformation deepened tensions and unfairly damaged firms like EDP that, he says, aimed to support communities.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’sBicycles are displayed at a Walmart, Wednesday, April 16, 2025, in Groton, Conn. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

Bicycles are displayed at a Walmart, Wednesday, April 16, 2025, in Groton, Conn. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)The Penn-Wharton Budget Model’s April report predicted that the Republican president’s tariffs

by about 6% and wages by 5%.A major caveat of the CBO’s estimates is written into the report — its estimates are “subject to significant uncertainty, in part because the Administration could change how the tariff policies are administered.”