Climate Change Biotechnology: Mitigation & Adaptation

Climate change mitigation — reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere — requires a portfolio of approaches: reducing emissions from fossil fuel use, reducing emissions from land use, and removing CO₂ from the atmosphere. Biotechnology contributes to all three. Biofuels displace fossil fuels; bio-based materials displace petrochemical materials with lower life-cycle emissions; methane emissions from agriculture and waste can be reduced through biological interventions; and biological carbon capture — both through enhanced ecosystem sequestration and engineered systems — can remove CO₂ from the atmosphere.

The scale of the challenge is enormous. Global greenhouse gas emissions are around 50 billion tonnes CO₂-equivalent per year, and reaching net-zero by mid-century — the consensus target for limiting warming to 1.5°C — requires reducing these emissions to near zero while removing several billion tonnes per year of CO₂ from the atmosphere. Biotechnology alone cannot deliver this, but it can contribute meaningfully to several mitigation pathways. Realizing this potential requires both technical innovation and supportive policy.

Hrisana Journal welcomes submissions across all dimensions of climate change biotechnology — from fundamental research on biological carbon fixation and methane metabolism through process development and field implementation, to life-cycle assessment and policy analysis. Our interdisciplinary scope reflects the systemic nature of the climate challenge.

Biological carbon capture uses photosynthesis or chemosynthesis to convert CO₂ into biomass. Natural ecosystems — forests, grasslands, wetlands, soils, oceans — already sequester roughly half of human CO₂ emissions, but this capacity is being degraded by land-use change and climate change itself. Enhancing ecosystem carbon storage through restoration, improved management, and biochar amendment is one of the most readily deployable biological carbon dioxide removal approaches.

Engineered biological carbon capture uses phototrophic microorganisms (microalgae, cyanobacteria) or chemotrophic microorganisms (hydrogen-oxidizing bacteria, methanotrophs) to convert CO₂ into biomass or products. Microalgae cultivation, in particular, has been explored at pilot and demonstration scale for combined CO₂ utilization and biomass production. The biomass can be used for biofuels, animal feed, or high-value products. Challenges include the dilute nature of CO₂ in flue gas, the energy and cost of cultivation and harvesting, and the need for sustainable disposal or use of the biomass.

Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) routes the captured CO₂ into products rather than storing it geologically. Biological CCU — converting CO₂ to fuels, chemicals, or materials via biological systems — offers the advantage of operating at ambient conditions and producing useful products. The challenge is that the products typically have lower economic value than the cost of capture, particularly if the CO₂ must first be purified from flue gas. Life-cycle assessment is essential to verify that the overall process delivers net emission reductions, accounting for energy and material inputs.

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) — producing energy from biomass while capturing and geologically storing the resulting CO₂ — is one of the few proposed technologies that can deliver net-negative emissions. The biomass absorbs CO₂ during growth; the CO₂ is released during energy conversion and captured; and geological storage keeps it out of the atmosphere. The net effect is removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere. BECCS features prominently in IPCC scenarios that limit warming to 1.5°C or 2°C.

Implementation of BECCS at scale faces significant challenges. Sustainable biomass supply is limited by land, water, and competing uses. The infrastructure for CO₂ capture, transport, and storage is largely undeveloped. The economics depend on carbon pricing or other policy support that may not be available at sufficient levels. And the sustainability of BECCS — particularly with respect to land use, biodiversity, and food security — must be carefully assessed for each specific deployment.

Research on BECCS spans several directions: sustainable biomass production (including algal biomass that avoids land-use concerns); optimization of energy conversion with CO₂ capture (combustion, gasification, fermentation with capture); development of CO₂ capture technologies with lower energy penalties; and integrated assessment of BECCS sustainability. Hrisana Journal welcomes submissions across these research areas, particularly work that transparently addresses both the technical performance and the broader sustainability implications.

Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after CO₂, with a global warming potential about 28 times that of CO₂ over 100 years. Reducing methane emissions is therefore one of the most effective near-term climate mitigation strategies. Major anthropogenic methane sources include agriculture (enteric fermentation in livestock, rice cultivation, manure management), waste (landfills, wastewater), and fossil fuel production (natural gas systems, coal mines). Biotechnology offers mitigation approaches for several of these sources.

Enteric fermentation in ruminants produces methane as a by-product of microbial digestion in the rumen. Feed additives — including certain seaweeds (Asparagopsis taxiformis) that contain bromoform, synthetic inhibitors (3-NOP), and lipids — can suppress methanogenesis and reduce enteric methane emissions by 30-80% in some studies. The rumen microbiome itself is a target for manipulation, with approaches ranging from probiotics to vaccines against methanogens. Translation from research to widespread adoption faces challenges of cost, regulation, and animal performance.

Landfill methane is produced by anaerobic decomposition of organic waste. Source separation of organics for composting or anaerobic digestion prevents methane generation. For existing landfills, methane capture (gas extraction systems) combined with biological oxidation in landfill cover soils can reduce emissions. Methanotrophic bacteria in cover soils oxidize methane to CO₂ and biomass, with well-designed biofilters achieving 80-95% oxidation efficiency. Similar approaches can be applied to other low-concentration methane sources such as coal mine ventilation air.

Climate change adaptation — adjusting to the impacts of a changing climate — requires resilient crops, livestock, and ecosystems. Biotechnology contributes through the development of stress-tolerant varieties, the engineering of microbiomes to enhance stress tolerance, and the restoration of ecosystems that buffer climate impacts. The challenge is to develop and deploy these tools fast enough to keep pace with changing conditions, and to do so in ways that are socially and environmentally sustainable.

Drought-tolerant crops have been developed through both conventional breeding and genetic engineering. Marker-assisted breeding has accelerated the development of varieties with improved water-use efficiency and drought escape (early maturity). Transgenic approaches — expressing genes that protect against osmotic stress, oxidative stress, or that modify stomatal regulation — have shown promise in research but limited commercial deployment. Gene editing (CRISPR) offers new opportunities to introduce stress-tolerance traits without the regulatory burden of transgenic approaches.

Microbiome engineering to enhance stress tolerance is an emerging approach. Plants inoculated with plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria or mycorrhizal fungi often show improved tolerance to drought, salinity, and heat stress. The mechanisms include production of ACC deaminase (reducing ethylene stress), induced systemic tolerance, improved water and nutrient uptake, and production of osmoprotectants. Translation to field deployment requires reliable formulation and application methods and an understanding of how inoculants interact with the resident microbiome across environments.

Hrisana Journal welcomes submissions on all aspects of climate change biotechnology — from fundamental research through applied development and field implementation. Our peer-reviewed, open-access format ensures global visibility for your work, supporting the global community addressing climate change. Visit our Submit Manuscript page to begin your submission.