When many of us think about the causes of climate change, we picture SUVs guzzling gas on the highway or passenger jets leaving vapor trails in the sky.
But there’s a less obvious source of greenhouse gases that does at least as much short-term damage: cow burps.
The methane emitted by the world’s billion-plus belching cattle has roughly the same impact on the climate as all the passenger vehicles on the planet and four times the impact of all airlines, according to Colin South, chief executive of ArkeaBio, a Boston agricultural biotechnology firm.
Carbon dioxide may get more attention, but methane is more potent, with 84 times the warming power over a 20-year period, according to European Union energy experts. ArkeaBio is working on a vaccine that would be administered to cattle not to prevent disease but to reduce methane emissions caused by a group of microorganisms in their stomachs.
Founded in 2021, the privately held startup has been testing a vaccine candidate for about a year in cattle trials with help from researchers at Texas A&M University, South said. ArkeaBio hopes the US Department of Agriculture approves the firm’s experimental vaccine in three to four years.
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“We’ve moved a long way over the last 18 months or so,” said South, who grew up on a 1,000-head sheep farm in New Zealand and has a PhD in bioprocess engineering from Dartmouth College. “We’re confident from what we’re seeing that the mechanism of action does work.”
ArkeaBio recently announced that it had raised $26.5 million in a financing round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the climate-focused fund started by Bill Gates. Breakthrough also led a seed round of $12 million in 2022.
“Reducing methane emissions from the agricultural sector is one of the most pressing challenges in today’s fight against climate change,” Chris Rivest, chairman of the board at ArkeaBio and a partner at Breakthrough, said in a statement. “ArkeaBio’s approach using innovative vaccine technologies will create effective and massively scalable solutions.”
Cattle owners skewered ArkeaBio’s effort.
Justin Tupper, president of the United States Cattlemen’s Association, said he doesn’t believe that cow burps are a major contributor of greenhouse gases and called the notion of vaccinating cattle to reduce methane “laughable.”
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Environmentalists who back such proposals “burn more methane in their private jets than cows do all year,” he said in a phone interview from South Dakota.
Vaccine proponents, for their part, say the need to reduce cows’ methane emissions stems from how their digestive systems work.
Cattle belong to a group of animals known as ruminants, which also include deer, sheep, goats, and buffalo. They all have a ruminant stomach, a four-chambered organ. It allows them to eat high-fiber food such as grass and hay but also produces trillions of microorganisms in the largest chamber.
ArkeaBio is working on a vaccine that would target a methane-producing subset called methanogens. The vaccine would stimulate antibodies to bind to and neutralize methanogens. There’s no indication that this would harm cattle, South said.
The shot would likely be administered a couple of times a year. Cattle already receive regular vaccinations to protect them from brucellosis, respiratory diseases, bovine viral diarrhea, and other ailments.
Scientists and agricultural biotechs have experimented with a variety of approaches to reducing methane emissions. They include feed additives such as seaweed. One British startup, ZELP, has even developed a cattle mask to capture the greenhouse gas after the animals belch.
South says a vaccine would be the most efficient and durable solution.
“You’ve got to have something that has longevity of impact,” he said. “That’s where we see vaccines having a real advantage.”
ArkeaBio has about 20 employees and is located in the former Hood Milk Plant in Charlestown, a fitting site for a company focusing on cattle.
The recent financing round attracted new investors, including the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, AgriZeroNZ, Rabo Ventures, Overview Capital, and The51 Food & AgTech Fund.
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AgriZeroNZ, a public-private partnership between the New Zealand government and agricultural firms, said, “A methane vaccine for ruminant animals is internationally recognized as the ‘holy grail’ to deliver methane reduction at low cost and mass scale.”
New Zealand has focused on reducing methane emissions because agriculture is such a major part of its economy. The nation’s government declared a climate emergency in 2020 and promised to make its public sector carbon neutral by 2025.
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jonathan.saltzman@globe.com.