Lego, fossil fuels and the COP28 climate deal: What toy bricks tell us about the immense difficulties of going green
The last-minute deal agreed at the COP28 summit in Dubai to move away from fossil fuels is being heralded as a major breakthrough.
But while it’s the first time these annual climate negotiations have agreed to reduce our reliance on coal, oil and gas, it stops short of what many campaigners had been demanding: a promise to phase out fossil fuel use altogether.
Which raises a question: Why?
Why couldn’t the meeting go one step further and promise to leave all fossil fuels in the ground?
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Applause for ‘historic’ COP28 deal
Perhaps the best answer begins somewhere unexpected: with a piece of Lego.
Most Lego bricks are made of a plastic called Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene, or ABS for short. It’s a tough thermoplastic, which is to say one of those plastics you can melt down and form back into other shapes again, and it’s brilliant at doing all the things Lego bricks need to do.
It’s incredibly durable. It can be moulded precisely, with tolerances of within four microns, meaning one brick fits neatly into another.
Finally, it has pretty unbeatable “clutch power”, as the company calls it: the bricks stick together robustly but are also pretty easy to pull apart.
But ABS is made, like nearly all plastics, out of chemicals derived from oil and gas.
A few years ago Lego committed to trying to make its blocks not directly from oil but from other feedstocks.
After much investigation it experimented with using old plastic bottles – or recycled polyethylene terephthalate (RPET), to use the technical term.
But, try as it might, it struggled to make this RPET work as well as ABS. The only way to make it perform as well as the old brick – the rigidity, the accuracy, the “clutch” – was to process it and reprocess it, adding a host of additional materials along the way.
A few months ago, it revealed that in practical terms those efforts – thus far – had failed. Ironically enough, it took more energy to turn those recycled bottles into bricks than it did to take oil and turn it into bricks.
Fossil fuels are hard to beat
Now, it’s still relatively early days. But Lego’s efforts are a pretty good reminder of something pretty profound. Like it or not, fossil fuels are remarkably good at what they do.
We use them in vast quantities because they are a brilliant source of energy and a brilliant source of chemicals.
Coal, demonised as it may be these days, isn’t just good at firing up power stations; it’s also nearly unbeatable (in its coked form) at helping you turn certain ores into metals.
The good news – from a carbon cutting perspective – is that we’re getting better and better at finding alternatives to most of the things fossil fuels do.
Electric cars are in many ways better than the petrol cars they’re replacing. Wind and solar panels are very good at generating electricity – though we’re still working on reliable, affordable and green ways to back up the grid when the wind’s not blowing.
But for certain purposes – purposes far more serious than some toy building blocks – it’s still very hard to beat fossil fuels.
We still rely on natural gas for most of the world’s nitrogen fertiliser production, without which half of the world would starve.
We still have yet to find a way of mass producing concrete without spewing a lot of carbon dioxide into the air. And making plastics without oil is, as Lego learnt to its cost, tricky, to say the least.
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Now, there are very smart people working on all of the above and there are really promising green candidates for many of these tricky fossil fuel products.
But many remain at the prototype stage, a very long way from being able to compete on a level playing field with their industrial counterparts.
The upshot is that even the most ambitious plans for how we might reduce global carbon emissions still assume we’ll be using fossil fuels come 2050 – and potentially into the foreseeable future beyond that too.
Even optimistic plans admit we’ll need some fossil fuels
Take the International Energy Agency (IEA) Net Zero by 2050 plan.
This framework has all the green credentials – indeed it’s often cited approvingly by organisations like Just Stop Oil, since its models suggest there’s no need for further oil and gas exploration.
But even this plan still assumes we’ll be getting more than a fifth of our energy from fossil fuels (mostly oil and gas) come 2050.
Now it’s worth saying, about a third of those 2050-vintage fossil fuels are not being burnt, but are instead being turned into products like plastics (including Lego bricks, if they haven’t cracked it by then).
Which is an important distinction because they won’t be responsible for the carbon emissions we’re really concerned with.
But that still leaves a lot of fossil fuels being burnt – a lot of them in the engines of planes (sustainable aviation fuel will only get us so far, thinks the IEA) and some to do all those other tricky things like making fertilisers and so on.
And here’s the key thing, the thing one can’t emphasise enough: this is not a conservative plan. This is about the most optimistic plan you’ll find among policymakers today (that doesn’t involve drastic changes in living standards).
But even this plan for net zero depends on a large chunk of fossil fuels being burnt.
Some of the emissions, reckons the IEA, can be captured and squirrelled away underground (“carbon capture and storage” or CCS as it’s called) – though it’s worth saying CCS is one of those technologies that’s still barely been carried out at large scale.
But even after you subtract that, there’s still a not unsubstantial amount of unabated fossil fuel burning going on.
Even in 2050. Even in the most optimistic of all likely pathways.
And here’s the other thing you need to know. We’re already falling far short of that pathway.
Right now our oil production is way, way above where that IEA pathway said it should be.
Reasons for hope
Global carbon emissions are now so far beyond where they should be heading if we wanted to keep global warming below the 1.5C threshold most campaigners are pushing for.
Indeed, a glance at the statistics suggests that that goal is now incredibly unlikely – some would say impossible.
Yet for all of this, there’s plenty of reasons for hope.
Overall emissions may be higher than we’d like them to be, but by the same token they’re considerably lower than they seemed to be heading back in 2015.
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Carbon emissions: The global picture
Thanks to technologies like wind turbines, batteries and solar panels, the world is getting better at generating clean energy quicker than expected.
The very scariest climate outcomes look much less likely today than they did a few years ago – according to the IPCC’s own analysis.
But the more we wrestle with the difficulties of the energy transition, the clearer it is how enormous the challenge ahead remains. And a forensic look at that challenge underlines why there’s a very big difference between pledging to “phase down” and to “phase OUT” fossil fuels.
The former is doable – and it’s pretty extraordinary it’s taken this long for COP ministers to commit to it.
Achieving the latter by 2050 while maintaining today’s levels of living standards is close to inconceivable.
At least 36 people have been killed after a fire engulfed several buildings at a high-rise residential complex in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong leader John Lee said another 279 people were reported missing. He said 29 people remained in hospital.
About 900 people have been evacuated to temporary shelters after the blaze – Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in years – broke out at the Wang Fuk Court housing complex in the city’s Tai Po district.
Three men have since been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter, broadcaster RTHK reported.
Pics: AP
Meanwhile, fire chiefs said the high temperatures were making it challenging for crews to mount rescue operations.
Mr Lee said the fire was “coming under control” shortly after midnight.
The blaze was upgraded to a level 5 alarm, the highest level of severity, as night fell.
Pics: AP
The dead included one firefighter, officials said earlier.
A number of other firefighters were said to have been hurt while trying to tackle the flames as they ripped through the 31-storey towers.
Pic: Reuters
Pic: AP
Records show the Wang Fuk Court site consists of eight blocks, with almost 2,000 apartments housing around 4,800 residents, including many elderly people. It was built in the 1980s and has recently been undergoing a major renovation.
Pic: Reuters
Pic: Reuters
The fire, which broke out at 2.51pm local time, had spread on bamboo scaffolding and construction netting set up around the exterior of the complex.
It was not known how the fire started, but officials said it began on the external scaffolding of one of the buildings before spreading inside and to nearby buildings, likely aided by windy conditions.
Pic: Reuters
Pic: Reuters
Flames and smoke were still pouring out of many windows as night fell.
Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed condolences to the firefighter who died, and extended his sympathies to the families of the victims, according to state broadcaster CCTV. He also urged an “all-out” effort to minimise casualties and losses.
The UK’s foreign secretary described the fire as “truly devastating and deeply depressing”. Yvette Cooper said: “The UK sends heartfelt condolences to all the families affected and to the people of Hong Kong.”
Tai Po is in the northern part of Hong Kong, and close to the border with the mainland Chinese city of Shenzhen.
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Bamboo scaffolding is a common sight in Hong Kong at building construction and renovation projects.
However, the government said earlier this year it would start phasing it out for public projects because of safety concerns.
The blaze is the deadliest fire in Hong Kong since the deaths of 41 people in a commercial building in Kowloon in November 1996.
That fire was later found to have been caused by welding during internal renovations, with a public inquiry yielding sweeping updates to building standards and fire safety regulations in the city’s high-rise offices, shops and homes.
Two military personnel who were shot near the White House in Washington DC have died.
A suspect has been taken into custody and the area secured, police said.
The White House was placed into lockdown, while US President Donald Trump is away in Florida.
Washington DC shooting latest updates
Pics: AP
Mr Trump initially posted on his Truth Social platform to say the two National Guardsmen had been “critically wounded”, adding that the “animal” that shot them “is also severely wounded, but regardless, will pay a very steep price”.
But West Virginia’s governor said both victims were members of his state’s National Guard and had died from their injuries.
Patrick Morrisey added: “These brave West Virginians lost their lives in the service of their country. … Our entire state grieves with their families, their loved ones, and the Guard community. West Virginia will never forget their service or their sacrifice, and we will demand full accountability for this horrific act.”
Pic: AP
Police tape cordoned off the scene, while agents from the US Secret Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were on the scene, as National Guard troops stood sentry nearby.
Emergency personnel cordon off an area near where National Guard soldiers were shot. Pics: AP
The Joint DC Task Force confirmed it was responding to an incident in the vicinity of the White House.
The DC Police Department posted on X: “Critical Incident: MPD is on the scene of a shooting at 17th and I Street, NW. Please avoid the area.”
In an update, the force said: “The scene is secured. One suspect is in custody.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “The White House is aware and actively monitoring this tragic situation.
“The president has been briefed.”
Mr Trump was at his resort in Palm Beach ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, while US vice president JD Vance was in Kentucky.
Flights arriving at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport were temporarily halted due to its proximity to the scene of the shooting, the US Federal Aviation Administration said.
Hundreds of National Guard members have been patrolling the nation’s capital after Mr Trump issued an emergency order in August, which federalised the local police force and sent in the guard from eight states and the District of Columbia.
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