Microbial Solutions for Climate Change

by Mechas
 

Fig. 1. The global carbon budget. CO₂ emissions from human activities to the atmosphere and CO₂ absorbed by the natural carbon sinks. All values in billion tons of carbon per year. Source. Frontispiece: Root nodules formed by Frankia alni on Alnus acuminata. Credit: Roberto Kolter

News media are packed with warnings about climate change – those long–term shifts in temperature and weather patterns that today are largely attributed to human activities. Microbes, inextricably linked and key to planetary health, offer sustainable solutions.

 

The year 2024 promises to be the warmest one on record. During its 4.5-billion-year history, planet Earth has experienced changing climate conditions, but only during this last century has warming occurred so fast. Gases like carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O) naturally keep the atmosphere warm, a greenhouse effect necessary for life. However, our use of fossil fuels has overwhelmed our planet's capacity to regulate these gases, resulting in the steady increase of annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the last decades, reaching approximately 54 gigatons of CO₂ equivalents in 2023.

 

Nations recently met at the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties, COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, to negotiate initiatives and cooperation to tackle climate change. Since the first climate change COP in 1995 in Berlin, there have been advances, but there is still a long way to go. Public awareness has increased, and actions have been taken to reduce the use of fossil fuels and invest in renewable and sustainable practices. However, the reduction of GHG emissions has been uneven across nations, and policies to mitigate climate change have been slow. This means that we might be unable to meet the target of a 1.5°C increase in the world's average surface temperature above pre-industrial levels by the year 2100. Temperatures above this threshold are predicted to alter ecosystems and lead to more extreme and irreversible climate effects.

 

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Table 1. Examples of microbial strategies to tackle cli­mate change. Source

What can be done? A large group of scientists published an urgent call to action (appearing simultaneously in multiple journals) arguing for the use of microbial systems to confront this crisis. The proposal is to act now by harnessing microbial–based solutions and scientific expertise to help mitigate the escalating climate problems. Some examples of proposed solutions are shown in the table.

 

The authors suggest that the efficient implementation across borders of these microbiome–based approaches requires a decentralized yet globally coordinated strategy. They also propose the establishment of a global science-based climate task force, with representatives from scientific societies and institutions, to provide rigorous and evidence–based answers and solutions to relevant stakeholders such as country delegates and negotiators at the United Nations COP meetings. Science and researchers should be at the forefront, working together to assess strategies and responses required to curb the impacts of the current climate crisis and protect our planet for future generations.

 

 

 

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