Enhancing Photosynthesis in Trees for CO2 Reduction
Fixing the Climate Crisis by Fixing Carbon
Carbon dioxide (CO2) remains the biggest culprit of our climate crisis, the greatest existential threat to humans today. As CO2 is released from burning fossil fuels, it absorbs and returns infrared energy back to Earth, overheating our planet. Hurricanes, wildfires, and other natural disasters due to global warming are causing massive famine and displacement. With this burgeoning devastation, there is an urgent need to find a solution to remove more CO2 from the atmosphere.
Photosynthesis is the natural process by which plants remove CO2. Each year trees naturally capture ~800 million tons (~12%) of U.S. carbon emissions. Our solution is to develop photosynthesis-enhanced trees with increased capacity to fix carbon by engineering the plant enzyme, Rubisco Activase (RCA). Improving the photosynthetic efficiency of trees in the U.S. by 25-50% will increase carbon fixation and remove an additional 200-400 million tons of atmospheric CO2, thus decreasing global warming worldwide.
