Justin Hughes is using his experience as a fighter pilot in the fight to reduce carbon emissions. Former Red Arrows pilot Justin Hughes is more used to soaring through the air than toiling in the dirt. But the former fighter pilot of 12 years and member of the Royal Air Force aerobatics team is using his military experience in the fight to reduce carbon emissions, by setting his sights on agriculture, an industry that pumps out more carbon dioxide than aviation.
![[Former Red Arrow pilot Justin Hughes is chief executive of the firm NetZeroNitrogen]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/02/14/newFile-4.jpg)
“Aviation is the traditional bad boy of climate change, together with various other big-ticket items,” Mr Hughes says. “But there are some massive under-the-radar pollutants that simply don’t get the same level of coverage – and this would be a great example.”.
![[Rice crops are the subject of current tests involving G. diazotrophicus]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/06/16/Trial-site-Philippines.jpg)
Synthetic fertiliser has helped to feed billions of people since the invention of the Haber-Bosch process a century ago, but its devastating impact on the climate now means that humanity likely must find a way to end its reliance on them. For Mr Hughes, the key to disrupting that section of the industry – which is responsible for 2.1 per cent of all CO² emissions - may be a lesser-known bacteria, first discovered lurking in Brazilian sugarcane in 1988.
His company NetZeroNitrogen is now seeking to bring this bacteria, Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus, to a global market, to significantly reduce food producers’ reliance on synthetic fertilisers. Mr Hughes is under no illusions that the road ahead will be “straight or easy”, he believes his own military experience bolsters his prospects of success.
