Harnessing microbiome-based biotechnologies for sustainable mitigation of nitrous oxide emissions

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of climate change mitigation within this century will require adoption of new innovative technologies to control emissions of nitrous oxide (N₂O), an important greenhouse gas leading to global warming. This is particularly important in the face of growing fertilizer consumption and continuous land degradation. Currently used tools to mitigate N₂O emissions are based on agrochemical inputs and agronomic practices. Emerging technologies include plant breeding approaches to manipulate microbiome activities in agro-ecosystems, and microbial biotechnology approaches for in situ microbiome manipulation and engineering via use of biochemical, cellular and genome-editing methods. This article assessed the likely contribution of microbial biotechnology to the mitigation of N₂O emissions and discussed how to facilitate the development of environmental-friendly microbiome-based biotechnology for sustainable climate change mitigation.