While the EU’s internal assessment of gene editing continues, calls continue for its use to be allowed. Its usefulness as a precision tool in plant breeding and variety modification is unquestionable.

We often reference its potential usefulness to supply genetic disease and pest resistance and it is a key tool to enable the reduction in pesticide usage.

One of the most recent claims relates to its potential usefulness to help combat climate change and carbon sequestration.

Innovations

A recent report - Gene Editing for the Climate: Biological Solutions for Curbing Greenhouse Emissions - calls on governments across the globe to accelerate the development and deployment of gene editing technologies in the fight against global warming.

The report identifies that it is having influence beyond the laboratory and is helping provide innovations in medicine and manufacturing, as well as in agriculture.

The fight against COVID-19 is accelerating its profile, as gene editing is being used in the development of antiviral therapies and vaccines.

The report also suggests that gene editing technologies such as CRISPR could improve agricultural productivity by up to 50% by 2050 if the regulatory structure is favourable. It will be a 21st century tool, the report argues.

Carbon assimilation

The report states that there are three key areas where gene editing can be targeted to support climate change.

These are focused around enhanced carbon capture, increased yield and the creation of more sustainable biomaterials.

Regarding carbon capture, plants and crops consume carbon dioxide to grow. They pull it in from the atmosphere and transform it, using photosynthesis, into sugars that fuel plant growth systems.

Plants have always done this, so it is not new or not a product of any man-made technology.

However, science is now finding new traits capable of enhancing the capture of carbon so that more is taken in.

This opens the possibility of producing plants which can pull more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and therefore help in sequestration to balance emission levels.

One of the theoretical strengths of precision breeding and gene editing is an ability to alter the storage molecules within the plant

It is almost inevitable that an enhanced ability to take in more carbon and convert it more efficiently into sugars will also enhance plant growth and yield if it can be done.

Similar technologies might also be used to improve the oil biosynthesis pathway to enhance oil content and yield in crops such as oilseed rape, camelina and many others.

One of the theoretical strengths of precision breeding and gene editing is an ability to alter the storage molecules within the plant and so make it more suited to different end uses.

In this way, plants could be engineered to produce more sustainable, better and biodegradable plastic alternatives. This is already happening in the manufacture of goods such as disposable cutlery, straws and even fashion items.

This is possible because of plant-derived substances called polyhydroxyalkanoates, which can produce plastic-like products but have the capacity to disintegrate in as little as two months.

And having the capacity to make these ‘disposable’ goods from plants rather than plastics means a saving in the use of hydrocarbons.

Need access

While these tools have the capability to be useful across a range of entities, this cannot happen while their use is not allowed by governments.

But genetic engineering can help us to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in many different ways.