Global Ecology and Conservation xx (xxxx) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Global Ecology and Conservation journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gecco Original research article The contribution of Utility-Scale Solar Energy to the global climate regulation and its effects on local ecosystem services Q1 Antonella De Marco a , Irene Petrosillo b,* , Teodoro Semeraro b , Maria Rita Pasimeni a , Roberta Aretano b , Giovanni Zurlini b a Department of Innovation Engineering, Ecotekne, University of Salento, Prov.le Lecce Monteroni, Lecce, Italy b Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies, Ecotekne, University of Salento, Lecce, Italy graphical abstract article info Article history: Received 18 July 2014 Received in revised form 24 September 2014 Accepted 9 October 2014 Available online xxxx abstract One solution to mitigate climate change can be the production of renewable energy. In this context, the aims of this paper are: (1) the identification of local unsuitable areas for the installation of Utility-Scale Solar Energy (USSE) in a municipality in southern Italy; (2) the assessment of the effects of their installation on local natural CO 2 sequestration and on avoided CO 2 ; and (3) the evaluation of their contribution to the global climate regulation through scenario analysis. Since 2007, 82 authorizations have been obtained for the instal- lation of USSE in the municipality and 42 over 64 already completed have been installed * Correspondence to: Lab. of Landscape Ecology, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies, University of Salento, Lecce, Italy. Tel.: +39 0832 298896; fax: +39 0832 298626. E-mail address: irene.petrosillo@unisalento.it (I. Petrosillo). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2014.10.010 2351-9894/© 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/ 3.0/).