Research Information System
Environmental Modeling and Assessment, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
The development model adopted by Latin American countries has been increasingly questioned due to the sustained deterioration of environmental quality. The region has experienced a significant increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with resource-intensive production structures. This study analyzes the impact of economic growth, governance quality, green energy, financial efficiency, human capital, and natural resource rents on total GHG emissions in seventeen Latin American economies during 1990–2021. Unlike research focused exclusively on carbon dioxide, this study uses total GHG emissions to more comprehensively capture regional environmental dynamics. The results confirm a long-term cointegration relationship in the presence of structural breaks, demonstrating the persistence of environmental pressures associated with structural factors. Quantile regressions based on moments identify a nonlinear, U-shaped relationship between economic growth and emissions, suggesting that the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis does not hold for the region. Green energy does not fully replace fossil fuels, while institutional quality and human capital show heterogeneous impacts across the emissions distribution; in contrast, financial efficiency exhibits a mitigating effect. The results are robust under specifications that control for heterogeneity and cross-cutting dependencies. Consequently, achieving SDG 13 requires a structural transformation of the region’s production and energy matrix, as well as the integration of binding environmental criteria into natural resource governance.