This work tries to determine whether it is possible to stabilize CO2 emissions under a rapid increase of Gross Domestic Product in a medium term. The paper is an effort to study in detail how changes in the driving forces of the economy affect CO2 emissions. We study the case of Venezuela for the period 1980–2025, using the methodology proposed by Robalino-López et al. (2014, 2013) [1] and [2], which is based on an extension of the Kaya identity and on a GDP formation approach that includes the effect of renewable energies. We test the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) [3] hypothesis in a coming future under different economic scenarios considering, therefore, not only past data but also projections for the coming years. We use cointegration techniques [4] and the Jaunky (2011) [5] specification to test the fulfillment of the EKC hypothesis in Venezuela. Our predictions show that Venezuela does not fulfill the EKC hypothesis, but however, the country could be on the way to achieve environmental stabilization in the medium term. This stabilization could be accomplished combining economic growth with increasing use of renewable energy, appropriated changes in the energy matrix, and in the productive sectoral structure

Is it possible for a country in the process of development to comply with the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in the medium term? This is question that inspired this study. This paper is an extension of a previous study focused on economic development and CO2 emissions in the coming years in Ecuador (Robalino-L´pez et al., 2013). The main goal of this paper is to analyze whether the EKC hypothesis holds within the period 1980-2025 under four different scenarios. This paper uses co-integration techniques (Stock and Watson, 1993) to test the existence of the EKC hypothesis in Ecuador in the medium term using the Jaunky's specification (Jaunky, 2011). Our proposal goes a step further than previous contributions, and intends to see under which conditions a country could approach the fulfilment of this hypothesis in the medium term. Results do not support the fulfilment of the EKC, nevertheless, our estimations show that Ecuador could be on the way to achieving environmental stabilization in the near future if economic growth is combined with an increase in the use of renewable energies, an improvement of the productive sectoral structure, and the use of a more efficient fossil fuel technology.This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad and the European regional development fund (FEDER) under project number FIS2011-28738-C02-02, and by Spanish Consolider-Ingenio 2010 (CPANCSD-2007-00042). One of the authors (A.R.L.) gives special thanks to the SENESCYT (Ecuador) and the AUIP (Spain) for the institutional and financial support