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.
Donald Trump has described crucial trade talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping as “amazing” – and says he will visit Beijing in April.
The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies met in South Korea as they tried to defuse growing tensions – with both countries imposing aggressive tariffs on exports since the president’s second term began.
Aboard Air Force One, Mr Trump confirmed tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the US will be reduced, which could prove much-needed relief to consumers.
It was also agreed that Beijing will work “hard” to stop fentanyl flowing into the US.
Semiconductor chips were another issue raised during their 100-minute meeting, but the president admitted certain issues weren’t discussed.
“On a scale of one to 10, the meeting with Xi was 12,” he told reporters en route back to the US.
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‘Their handshake was almost a bit awkward’
Xi a ‘tough negotiator’, says Trump
The talks conclude a whirlwind visit across Asia – with Mr Trump saying he was “too busy” to see Kim Jong Un.
However, the president said he would be willing to fly back to see the North Korean leader, with a view to discussing denuclearisation.
Mr Trump had predicted negotiations with his Chinese counterpart would last for three or four hours – but their meeting ended in less than two.
The pair shook hands before the summit, with the US president quipping: “He’s a tough negotiator – and that’s not good!”
It marks the first face-to-face meeting between both men since 2019 – back in Mr Trump’s first term.
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. Pic: AP
There were signs that Beijing had extended an olive branch to Washington ahead of the talks, with confirmation China will start buying US soybeans again.
American farmers have been feeling the pinch since China stopped making purchases earlier this year – not least because the country was their biggest overseas market.
Chinese stocks reached a 10-year high early on Thursday as investors digested their meeting, with the yuan rallying to a one-year high against the US dollar.
Analysis: A fascinating power play
Sky News Asia correspondent Helen-Ann Smith – who is in Busan where the talks took place – said it was fascinating to see the power play between both world leaders.
She said: “Trump moved quickly to dominate the space – leaning in, doing all the talking, even responding very briefly to a few thrown questions.
“That didn’t draw so much as an eyebrow raise from his counterpart, who was totally inscrutable. Xi does not like or respond well to unscripted moments, Trump lives for them.”
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On Truth Social, Mr Trump had described the summit as a gathering of the “G2” – a nod to America and China’s status as the world’s two biggest economies.
While en route to see President Xi, he also revealed that the US “Department of War” has now been ordered to start testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the Sudanese city of Al Fashir by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in a two-day window after the paramilitary group captured the regional capital, analysts believe.
Sky News is not able to independently verify the claim by Yale Humanitarian Labs, as the city remains under a telecommunications blackout.
Stains and shapes resembling blood and corpses can be seen from space in satellite images analysed by the research lab.
Al Fashir University. Pic: Airbus DS/2025
Al Fashir University. Pic: Airbus DS/2025
Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of Yale Humanitarian Labs, said: “In the past 48 hours since we’ve had [satellite] imagery over Al Fashir, we see a proliferation of objects that weren’t there before RSF took control of Al Fashir – they are approximately 1.3m to 2m long which is critical because in satellite imagery at very high resolution, that’s the average length of a human body lying vertical.”
Mini Minawi, the governor of North Darfur, said on X that 460 civilians have been killed in the last functioning hospital in the city.
The Sudan Doctors Network has also shared that the RSF “cold-bloodedly killed everyone they found inside Al Saudi Hospital, including patients, their companions, and anyone else present in the wards”.
World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was “appalled and deeply shocked” by the reports.
Satellite images support the claims of a massacre at Al Saudi Hospital, according to Mr Raymond, who said YHL’s report detailed “a large pile of them [objects believed to be bodies] against a wall at one building at Saudi hospital. And we believe that’s consistent with reports that patients and staff were executed en masse”.
In a video message released on Wednesday, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo acknowledged “violations in Al Fashir” and claimed “an investigation committee should start to hold any soldier or officer accountable”.
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Army soldiers ‘fled key Sudan city’ before capture
The Saudi Maternity Hospital in Al Fashir. Pic: Airbus DS /2025 via AP
The commander is known for committing atrocities in Darfur in the early 2000s as a Janjaweed militia leader, and the RSF has been accused of carrying out genocide in Darfur 20 years on.
Sources have told Sky News the RSF is holding doctors, journalists and politicians captive, demanding ransoms from some families to release their loved ones.
One video shows a man from Al Fashir with an armed man kneeling on the ground, telling his family to pay 15,000. The currency was not made clear.
In some cases, ransoms have been paid, but then more messages come demanding that more money be transferred to secure release.
Muammer Ibrahim, a journalist based in the city, is currently being held by the RSF, who initially shared videos of him crouched on the ground, surrounded by fighters, announcing his hometown had been captured under duress.
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He is being held incommunicado as his family scrambles to negotiate his release. Muammer courageously covered the siege of Al Fashir for months, enduring starvation and shelling.
The Committee to Protect Journalists regional director Sara Qudah said the abduction of Muammar Ibrahim “is a grave and alarming reminder that journalists in Al Fashir are being targeted simply for telling the truth”.
At least 30 people have died after Hurricane Melissa tore through the Caribbean on Wednesday.
The Red Cross said early indications show the storm has been a “disaster of unprecedented catastrophe”.
Storm Melissa has so far ravaged through Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba.
At least 34 are estimated to be dead in the Caribbean, with eight of those in Jamaica, one in the Dominican Republic and 25 in Haiti.
This was down from a previously reported 40.
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Later on Wednesday, the Jamaican government confirmed four people – three men and one woman – had been killed. This figure later rose to eight.
Local government minister, Desmond McKenzie, said: “They were discovered after being washed up by the flood waters generated by the hurricane.”
Devastating aerial footage shows towns destroyed by the storm.
The Jamaican prime minister, Andrew Holness, travelled to St Elizabeth, where the first deaths were reported, to inspect the storm’s impact.
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Sharing aerial footage of battered homes, he wrote: “The damage is great, but we are going to devote all our energy to mount a strong recovery.”
The storm made landfall in Cuba in the early hours of Wednesday morning before leaving mid-afternoon, heading towards the Bahamas.
Hurricane Melissa has ravaged through the Caribbean. Pic: Reuters
‘Whole communities are underwater’
Alexander Pendry, British Red Cross global response manager, said: “News is already coming through that whole communities are underwater and that the damage left by the strong winds has been devastating.
“The Jamaica Red Cross has been proactively supporting communities by preparing essential supplies and managing shelters. Their priority now is to reach people with aid as soon as possible.
“Across the Caribbean, Red Cross teams have been mobilising as Melissa continues its trajectory across Cuba, Dominican Republic and Haiti.”
He added: “Tragically, experience tells us that the impact on communities and individuals will be shattering and long lasting.
“We will be here for as long as people need us.”
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