An extensive decomposition analysis was used to research the primary driving forces behind energy-related carbon dioxide emissions per capita for the period 1993 to 2017 in a panel of South American countries. Evidence was found that the effect of per capita renewable productivity was challenging and compromised in South Latin American countries. Decoupling changed from a weak state to a strong decoupling state after the Kyoto protocol. When we remove the renewable productivity per capita effect, the results show that the state of strong decoupling was mainly achieved due to a group of economic drivers, with the negative changes in energy intensity, and in the gross domestic investment, proving to be the most significant contributors to decreasing CO2 emission per capita.
Keywords: Carbon dioxide emissions per capita; Decoupling effort; Economic growth per capita; Renewable productivity.