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Graphical abstract Abstract Although using solar power rather than fossil fuel to generate electricity can greatly reduce carbon emissions, the production of photovoltaic (PV) products consumes a considerable amount of energy and causes substantial emissions. Thus, the environmental benefits of importers and exporters through the PV international trade are imbalanced. Countries that import PV products benefit from PV power generation, while countries that export PV products suffer the costs of energy consumption and carbon emissions during production. Such imbalance makes it difficult to calculate a country's contribution to emission reduction of the world and its trade partners. This paper describes a method to calculate the contribution of a country's international PV trade to emission reduction of the world and its trade partners based on the PV industrial chain, using international trade data from 2008, 2012 and 2016, taking China as an example. As the results show, the contribution of China's international PV trade to worldwide emission reduction is over 1000 kilotons of CO 2 each year and reached nearly 13,000 kilotons in 2016. India and the Netherlands benefit from trade with China, while Malaysia and the Republic of Korea bear the costs of emission transfer from China every year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper is intended to demonstrate the ecological footprint (EF) calculation for the Malaysian three-sector economy based on the modified input–output (I–O) method and National Footprint Account (NFA), and provide information of the national EF, including its breakdown of the land categories. Based on the modified I–O, each Malaysian requires 0.304ha of estimated land to support their current consumptions and life styles from the agriculture, forestry and built-up sectors. This figure is substantially lower than the one calculated by the NFA (1.13gha/cap). Moreover, the EF of agriculture and forestry in the NFA method is higher than the modified I–O calculations whereas the EF for built sector shows the opposite. The EFs generated by the two methods are very different; the reason is the different weightings of economic activities and lack of detailed land use data. This kind of deficiency can be overcome if the required land use data are available. Not withstanding this, a standard and equitable approach to calculate the EF should first be agreed upon. On the other hand, Malaysia''s EF appears to be smaller than that of the developed countries (US, Canada or UK), but larger than that of other ASEAN countries. The largest contributor to the EF for each Malaysian is energy consumption. Instead, a major difference between EF of Malaysia and other ASEAN countries appears to the use of energy land. Thus, any effort to reduce energy consumption will serve to reduce the EF of the country. In this context, perhaps it is time to seriously review the issue of energy subsidies in Malaysia, particularly in light of the country''s aspiration for sustainability in development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]