Economic growth or environmental protection? The false dilemma of the Latin-American countries

The sustainable development concept recognizes that economic growth and environmental protection are inextricably linked but not necessarily opposed. This question remains unclear in the Latin-American developing countries, where societies have been inducted to think that economic growth is associated with pollutant emission growth and depletable resource consumption. By using a databased graphical model, we show the fundamental shortcoming of this idea; we conclude that the adoption of environmentally adapted technologies is not opposed to economic growth. Moreover, we argue that in order to meet both economic growth and environmental protection it is necessary to diminish the rate between pollutant emission and economical growth unit and the rate between resource consumption and economical growth unit. However, we observe that, in the developing Latin-American countries, the promotion of policies in order to limit pollutant emissions and resource consumptions requires enforceable rules. Finally, for these countries, the situation of the environmental debate is presented and the perspectives and threats of the regulation making process are analyzed. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.