RESUMO
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.