Synthetic Biology Could Cut More Carbon Than All Cars Have Ever Emitted  

Synthetic biology technologies could prevent up to 30 gigatonnes of carbon emissions—more than all passenger cars in history have ever produced. This striking finding comes from new research in Global Change Biology by CSIRO’s Professor Robert Speight and Dr Anthony Wiskich, who conducted the first comprehensive analysis of how engineering biology could reshape our climate future.  

The authors identify three main pathways for synthetic biology to reduce atmospheric carbon:  

• Restoring agricultural land: By boosting crop yields and creating alternative proteins, synthetic biology could reduce land needed for agriculture, allowing conversion back to natural ecosystems that store more carbon. 
• Reducing emissions: Applications include cutting methane from livestock, reducing fertilizer needs, producing biofuels, and creating low-carbon building materials. 
• Natural geoengineering: Engineering organisms to enhance carbon storage in wetlands, oceans, and arid ecosystems. 

The analysis reveals significant scaling requirements. For example, achieving one gigatonne of carbon reduction through precision fermentation would require vastly expanding current global fermentation capacity. The authors emphasise that while the theoretical potential is substantial, practical implementation faces economic, technological and social acceptance hurdles. 

The research provides a framework for prioritising synthetic biology climate applications based on their sensitivity to carbon pricing, land costs and circular economy policies. 

‘We hope that our high-level view of the decarbonisation potential of different synthetic biology application areas helps identify priorities and promotes the long-term contribution of these technologies towards climate change mitigation,’ says Dr Wiskich. 

Read the full paper here