Investing in hydropower in Guatemalia, geothermal in El Salvador or landfill gas projects in Bangladesh may not seem the obvious way for a European company to meet its new EU-allocated carbon emissions targets – but projects of this sort in the developing world are set to do just that, via emissions trading under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

The CDM opens up a potentially enormous market between Europe and the developing world, where heavy polluters in