This paper has analysed the contribution of economic growth on CO2 emissions. Economic development is a multifactorial concept where many variables are involved, and studying the effect of the whole on the increase in emissions presents a scientific challenge. For the analysis, Ecuador has been taken as the object of study, because it is a country which has experienced notable variations in economic indicators between 1970 and 2014. During this period, GDP per capita, index of economic freedom and national production of barrels of oil have been analyzed. Multivariate models have been tested where the influence of each economic variable and the overall effect on emission as a whole are detected. It has been proven that linear models applied by other researchers do not fit adequately in developing countries, where asymptotic growth is evident