Global development has been heavily reliant on the overexploitation of natural resources since the Industrial Revolution. With the extensive use of fossil fuels, deforestation, and other forms of land-use change, anthropogenic activities have contributed to the ever-increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere, causing global climate change. In response to the worsening global climate change, achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 is the most pressing task on the planet. To this end, it is of utmost importance and a significant challenge to reform the current production systems to reduce GHG emissions and promote the capture of CO₂ from the atmosphere. Herein, we review innovative technologies that offer solutions achieving carbon (C) neutrality and sustainable development, including those for renewable energy production, food system transformation, waste valorization, C sink conservation, and C-negative manufacturing. The wealth of knowledge disseminated in this review could inspire the global community and drive the further development of innovative technologies to mitigate climate change and sustainably support human activities.

The emission of nutrients and pesticides from agricultural soils endangers natural habitats. Here, we review to which extent carbon-rich organic amendments help to retain nutrients and pesticides in agricultural soils and to reduce the contamination of surrounding areas and groundwater. We compare straw, compost, and biochar to see whether biochar outperforms the other two more traditional and cheaper materials. We present a list of criteria to evaluate the suitability of organic materials to be used as soil amendments and discuss differences in elemental compositions of straw, compost, and biochar to understand, how soil microorganisms utilize those materials. We review their effects on physical and chemical soil characteristics, soil microbial communities, as well as effects on the transformation and retention of nutrients and pesticides in detail. It becomes clear that for all three amendments their effects can vary greatly depending on numerous aspects, such as the type of soil, application rate, and production procedure of the organic material. Biochar is most effective in increasing the sorption capacity of soils but does not outperform straw and compost with regards to the other aspects investigated. Nevertheless, the possibility to design biochar properties makes it a very promising material. Finally, we provide critical comments about how to make studies about organic amendments more comparable (comprehensive provision of material properties), how to improve concepts of future work (meta-analysis, long-term field studies, use of deep-insight microbial DNA sequencing), and what needs to be further investigated (the link between structural and functional microbial parameters, the impact of biochar on pesticide efficiency).

Climate change, biodiversity loss, and chemical pollution are planetary‐scale emergencies requiring urgent mitigation actions. As these “triple crises” are deeply interlinked, they need to be tackled in an integrative manner. However, while climate change and biodiversity are often studied together, chemical pollution as a global change factor contributing to worldwide biodiversity loss has received much less attention in biodiversity research so far. Here, we review evidence showing that the multifaceted effects of anthropogenic chemicals in the environment are posing a growing threat to biodiversity and ecosystems. Therefore, failure to account for pollution effects may significantly undermine the success of biodiversity protection efforts. We argue that progress in understanding and counteracting the negative impact of chemical pollution on biodiversity requires collective efforts of scientists from different disciplines, including but not limited to ecology, ecotoxicology, and environmental chemistry. Importantly, recent developments in these fields have now enabled comprehensive studies that could efficiently address the manifold interactions between chemicals and ecosystems. Based on their experience with intricate studies of biodiversity, ecologists are well equipped to embrace the additional challenge of chemical complexity through interdisciplinary collaborations. This offers a unique opportunity to jointly advance a seminal frontier in pollution ecology and facilitate the development of innovative solutions for environmental protection.