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Article: Leebens-Mack, JH, Barker, MS, Carpenter, EJ et al. (191 more authors) (2019) One thousand plant transcriptomes and the phylogenomics of green plants. Nature, 574. pp. 679-685. ISSN 0028-0836 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1693-2

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Received March | Revised May | Accepted June DOI: 10.1002/ppp3.10066

OPINION

Can pants hep us avoid seeding a humanmade cimate catastrophe

David J Beering

Department of Anima and Pant Sciences Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Societa Impact Statement Mitigation University of Sheffied Sheffied Human-made climate change places the future of the planet in peril. Rapid green- UK house gas emissions over the past few decades already commit Earth to a warmer Correspondence climate state and lock-in future extinctions. I consider what steps might be taken to David J Beering Department of Anima and Pant Sciences Leverhume Centre for protect the climate and the future of the biosphere by drawing on our understanding Climate Change Mitigation, University of of the Devonian rise of forests At stake is nothing ess t han the future of humanity Sheffied Sheffied S TN UK Email: [email protected] and the fate of species we are fortunate enough to share the planet with. Summary Funding information Leverhulme Trust Research Centre, Grant/ Drastic phase down of our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from burning fossil fuels Award Number RC within decades will likely be insufficient to avoid seeding catastrophic human-caused

climate change. We have to also start removing CO2 from the atmosphere, safely, affordably and within decades. Technological approaches for large-scale carbon re- moval and storage hold great promise but are far from the gigaton-scale required. Enhanced chemical weathering of crushed silicate rocks and afforestation are pro-

posed CO2 removal approaches mimicking events during the Devonian rise of for-

ests that triggered massive CO2 drawdown and the great ate Paaeozoic cooing Evidence from Earth's history suggests that if undertaken at scale, these strategies may represent key elements of a climate restoration plan but will still be far from sufficient Cimate protests by the words youth are justified They recognize the urgency of the situation and the intergenerational injustice of our time: current and future generations footing the immense economic and ecological bill for damaging carbon emissions they had no part in and which world leaders are failing to limit.

KEYWORDS carbon dioxide removal, chemical weathering, climate change, Earth history, reforestation

|INTRODUCTION atmospheric concentration of CO2, and other major greenhouse gases (GHGs), to levels unprecedented in human history.

The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere What's more, the concentration of atmospheric CO2 and other from fossil fuels and industry is at a staggering all-time high of ~36 GHGs has risen so rapidly over the past few decades that Earth's tem- billion tonnes (Gt, 109) annually, having risen every decade since the perature has yet to adjust fully to the new warmer climate they dictate.

1960s (Le Quere et al., 2018). Cumulative emissions from human This means that even if we could magically stop our CO2 emissions from activities since the onset of the pre-industrial era have raised the fossil fuels overnight, we have already committed Earth to transition to a

This is an open access artice under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommerciaNoDerivs License which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. The Author Plants, People, Planet New Phytoogist Trust

310 | wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ppp3 Plants, People, Planet. 2019;1:310–314. BEERLING | warmer climate (Hansen et al., 2013). Global temperatures have risen by Evidence from Earth history indicates that hundreds of millions of more than C since the s IPCC How much more warm ing years ago during the Devonian Period miion years ago is ‘in the pipeline’? In the near-term, we are practically guaranteed an- plants ‘bioengineered’ a cooler climate as the evolutionary appear- other 0.5°C as the climate system equilibrates to the increased radiative ance of trees, and the subsequent spread of deep-rooting forests forcing from rising concentrations of GHGs, with slow amplifying climate owered Paaeozoic atmospheric CO2 eves by Berner feedbacks likely to add another 1.0, 1.5°C or worse. In December 2015, 1998). The mechanisms for this drastic long-term CO2 decline and over nations wordwide signed up to the United Nations Framework cimatic descent towards the PermoCarboniferous iceage rea we Convention on Cimate Change Paris Agreement with the aim of hod- understood As root systems evoved to become arger and more ing the increase in global average temperate to below 2°C and pursue complex, they increased the surface area of the soil–root interface efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C, but without a legal mandate for and exploited larger volumes of soil for anchorage, water and nutri- enforcement UNFCCC Given the current situation vene a e- ent uptake Beering Berner Berner Through these nient 2°C target now looks wildly optimistic, and significant temperature and other biogeochemical impacts, trees accelerated the chemical ‘overshoots’ seem more likely, with potentially disastrous consequences breakdown of silicate rocks (termed weathering), liberating base cat- for the panet IPCC Obersteiner et a ions and forming dissolved bicarbonate in the process. Eventually, Internationa scientific organizations incuding the UKs Roya transport of the weathering products via surface runoff to the oceans Society Roya Society the Nationa Academy of Sc iences in resuted in ongterm carbon storage Berner B y acce- the United States Nationa Academy of Sciences and the erating the chemical weathering of silicate rocks, and locking up re- United Nations Intergovernmenta Pane on Cimate Change I PCC calcitrant carbon as the great Carboniferous coal measures formed,

2018), acknowledge that we have to start removing CO2 from the at- tree evoution can be viewed as an engine driving ate Paaeozoic mosphere safey affordaby and within a decade or two At the same cooling. This remarkable episode in the evolutionary history of plant time, we need to transform fundamentally our global energy systems by life saw Earth transition to a forested planet, and entrain self-re- replacing carbon-intensive fossil fuels with low-emission or carbon-free inforcing or positive feedbacks whereby bigger trees eeper d alternatives to slow and then halt carbon emissions (Davis et al., 2018). roots faster weathering greater nutrient reease bigger And every year we deay emissions reductions tens of biion of tonnes trees atmospheric carbon dioxide remova cooer cimate of CO2 are released into the atmosphere, making an already herculean Ageo Schecker Beering Beering erner B task increasingy difficut Hansen et a Stocker Berner

It may be possible to mimic those processes to remove CO2 from the atmosphere by dressing the soils of agricultural and forestry |ENTER THE KINGDOM OF PLANTS landscapes with crushed rapidly weathering silicate rocks, such as MAKING EDEN REDUX basat Beering et a Haque Chiang Santos Kantoa Masters Beering Long DeLucia Zhang Kang Wang Lessons from Earth's history during the greening of the continents Zhu The approach harnesses the power of pants their root have reevance to our current situation Figure Beering associating symbiotic microbiota and corrosive soil pore waters, to 1 385 415 Devonian a20 2100 2000 Ma Carbon removal during Earth’s CO2 CO2 draw-down transition to a forested planet draw-down Afforestation Increased rock of the continents weathering by forests

Next century Carbon removal CO CO 2 solutions: 2 draw-down draw-down Making Eden Redux Increased rock Reforestation of the weathering by croplands tropics and sub-tropics

FIGURE Symmetry in categories of carbon sequestration processes during Earths transition to a forested panet through the Devonian and those proposed for future climate change mitigation | BEERLING chemicay break down rock dust and capture carbon Zhang et a will be returned back to the atmosphere. More effective would be to

Kantoa et a Akaine siicate rock dust mineras are encourage natural forest regeneration in the tropics to lock-up CO2 immediately available and may be suitable for diverse crops and for- in forest biomass and soils (Lewis et al., 2019). Undertaken across estry initiatives. Making biogeochemical soil improvements in this a sufficiently large area of the globe, restoration of degraded for- way may also boost yields and harvests by adding plant-essential ested ecosystems has the potential to sequester another few billion nutrients and helping reverse soil acidification. tonnes of CO2 by 2100, although verifying increases in tropical for- At the same time an aarming sois crisis is unfoding Banwart est carbon stocks may prove challenging (Erb et al., 2018). It also According to the United Nations agricutura top sois requires careful assessment of possible indirect cooling feedbacks that provide food security for billions of people are disappearing at via changes in atmospheric chemistry Popkin a rate of 25 Gt/year. Conservation agriculture (which includes min- imum tillage) addresses this problem by reducing mechanical soil disturbance and adding organic carbon back to soil. Implementation |CHALLENGES AHEAD is increasing, and conservation agriculture is being practiced on about 180 million hectares of cropland, ~12.5% of croplands glob- To be absolutely clear, none of these making eden redux carbon ay with adoption becoming widespread throughout Northand capture measures represent a sufficient climate restoration plan.

South America and Europe Kassam Friedrich Derpsch Bringing the atmospheric CO2 concentration back down to an esti-

Yet more needs to be done And both argescae CO2 removal and mated safe concentration of ~350 ppm (Hansen et al., 2008) requires rebuilding of our rapidly disappearing top soils that underpin food immediate action to phase down emissions, and a wider portfolio security could be addressed with restorative soil management prac- of carbon removal techniques to scrub sufficient amounts of car- tices involving crushed natural and artificial silicate rocks to improve bon from the atmosphere each year. Yet, these technologies are im- global carbon and nutrient cycles. The joint requirement for saving mature and need multibillion dollar investment to move them from our climate and soils has congruence, in terms of the magnitude of the lab to pilot demonstrations to determine what can scale mas- the probem and soution and this coud hep incentivizeaction and sivey Erik Soheim previous Executive Director the United Nations increase feasibility. Environment Programme recenty issued a ca to arms here if we in- Humans have put ~1.53 billion hectares of land to the plough vest in the right technologies, ensuring that the private sector is involved, over the past century Foey et a reeasing a cumuative ca we can still meet the promise we made to our children to protect their Gt C from sois in the process Sanderman Heng Fiske future. But we have to get on the case now’ UN News and application of crushed rock to farmland could exploit existing Right now, carbon removal strategies look like an expensive ogistic infrastructure Potentia aso exists for increasing carbon option for helping to slow the pace of climate change (Hansen et sequestration in agricultural soils through changes in land man- al., 2017) and we must hope that as the engineering challenges are agement practices Minasny et a Zomer BossioSommer solved, costs fall precipitously as seen in other markets, such as solar Verchot incuding addition of biochar formed yroysisby p energy, to catalyse carbon capture. Without emissions reductions of biomass Woof Amonette StreetPerrott Lehmann oseph J combined with a suite of carbon removal efforts, we will face the 2010), with possible benefits for food security. However, as with profound consequences—growing climate impacts including intensi- most large-scale CO2 removal proposals, complex cultural, economic fying droughts, heat-waves, storms, ice-sheet melt and multi-metre and political constraints raise uncertainties over their effectiveness sea-level rise flooding coastal regions threatening displacement of Amundson Biardeau hundreds of miions of peope Cark et a Noto tmention We could also develop allied strategic carbon removal initiatives a biosphere in peri Hansen et a Lovejoy Hannah by undertaking reforestation of forested lands once cleared for agri- Treves et al., 2018), as human activities prime the engine of species cuture and afforestation of new areas Lewis Wheeer Mitchard extermination and threaten to seal the fate of biological diversity Koch, 2019), again mimicking the ancient Devonian ‘greening of land’ for miions of years Beering This is the intergenerationa when forests first spread across the continents Figure Beering injustice of our time: current and future generations footing the im- But the case is far from straightforward Ambitious goba mense economic and ecological bill for damaging carbon emissions tree restoration opportunities that could promote carbon seques- they played no part in, and which threaten to wreck the planet by tration with mutipe benefits Bastin et a require feasibi- initiating slow climate feedbacks and irreversible climate change on ity assessment, costings and careful carbon accounting, and must timescales relevant to human society (Hansen et al., 2013, 2017). avoid potentia conficts with the rising demand for food Aspart Our current climate crisis is urgent and unfolding at a time when of The Bonn Chaenge an internationa pan to restore miion global food demand will need to more than double before the end hectares of forest by 2030, 43 countries throughout the tropics of the century Godfray et a Can we stabiize the cimate and subtropics have already committed to replanting 300 million preserve the wonderful diversity of life on Earth and sustainably hectares of degraded and The Bonn Chaenge However if feed a crowded planet, without collateral environmental damage? reforestation occurs through planting of commercial trees that are Reducing GHG emissions from agriculture without compromising regularly harvested every 10–20 years, much of the CO2 captured food security has to be a priority. 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