Lego, fossil fuels and the COP28 climate deal: What toy bricks tell us about the immense difficulties of going green

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2 years ago

December 14, 2023

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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?

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.

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.

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.

World

Russian spy ship on edge of UK waters, warns defence secretary

Published

8 hours ago

November 19, 2025

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Russian spy ship on edge of UK waters, warns defence secretary

A Russian spy ship is currently on the edge of UK waters, the defence secretary has announced.

John Healey said it was the second time that the ship, the Yantar, had been deployed to UK waters.

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Giving a news conference in Downing Street, he said: “A Russian spy ship, the Yantar, is on the edge of UK waters north of Scotland, having entered the UK’s wider waters over the last few weeks.

“This is a vessel designed for gathering intelligence and mapping our undersea cables.

“We deployed a Royal Navy frigate and RAF planes to monitor and track this vessel’s every move, during which the Yantar directed lasers at our pilots.

“That Russian action is deeply dangerous, and this is the second time this year that this ship, the Yantar, has deployed to UK waters.”

Mr Healey added: “So my message to Russia and to Putin is this: we see you, we know what you’re doing, and if the Yantar travels south this week, we are ready.”

His warning comes following a report from MPs that the UK lacks a plan to defend itself from a military attack, despite the government promising to boost readiness with new arms factories.

At least 13 sites across the UK have been identified for new factories to make munitions and military explosives, with Mr Healey expecting the arms industry to break ground at the first plant next year.

The report, by the Commons Defence Committee, said the UK “lacks a plan for defending the homeland and overseas territories” as it urged the government to launch a “co-ordinated effort to communicate with the public on the level of threat we face”.

Mr Healey acknowledged the dangers facing the UK, saying the country was in a “new era of threat” that “demands a new era for defence”.

Giving more details on the vessel, he said it was “part of a Russian fleet designed to put and hold our undersea infrastructure and those of our allies at risk”.

He said the Yantar wasn’t just part of a naval operation but part of a Russian programme driven by Moscow’s Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research, or GUGI, which is “designed to have capabilities which can undertake surveillance in peacetime and sabotage in conflict”.

“That is why we’ve been determined, whenever the Yantar comes into British wider waters, we track it, we deter it and we say to Putin we are ready, and we do that alongside allies,” he added.

Asked by Sky News’ political correspondent Rob Powell whether this was the first time that lasers had been used by a Russian vessel against pilots, Mr Healey replied: “This is the first time we’ve had this action from Yantar directed against the British RAF.

“We take it extremely seriously. I’ve changed the Navy’s rules of engagement so that we can follow more closely, monitor more closely, the activities of the Yantar when it’s in our wider waters. We have military options ready.”

Mr Healey added that the last time the Yantar was in UK waters, the British military surfaced a nuclear-powered attack submarine close to the ship “that they did not know was there”.

The Russian embassy has been contacted for comment.

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South Korea: All 267 passengers and crew rescued from ferry that ran aground, says coastguard

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8 hours ago

November 19, 2025

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South Korea: All 267 passengers and crew rescued from ferry that ran aground, says coastguard

More than 250 passengers on board a ferry that ran aground off the South Korean coast have been rescued, according to the coastguard.

It said the Queen Jenuvia 2, travelling from the southern island of Jeju to the southwestern port city of Mokpo, hit rocks near Jindo, off the country’s southwest coast, late on Wednesday.

A total of 267 people were on board, including 246 passengers and 21 crew. Three people had minor injuries.

Footage showed passengers wearing life vests waiting to be picked up by rescue boats, which were approaching the 26,000-tonne South Korean ferry.

Its bow seemed to have become stuck on the edge of a small island, but it appeared to be upright and the passengers seemed calm.

Weather conditions at the scene were reported to be fair with light winds.

South Korea’s Prime Minister Kim Min-seok ordered all available boats and equipment to be used to rescue those on board, his office said.

The coastguard received a report of the incident late on Wednesday, and immediately deployed 20 vessels and a plane to join the rescue effort.

It was not immediately clear what caused the vessel to run aground.

The vessel can carry up to 1,010 passengers and has multiple lower decks for large vehicles and passenger vehicles, according to its operator Seaworld Ferry.

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In 2014, more than 300 people, mostly schoolchildren heading to Jeju on a school trip, died when the Sewol ferry sank.

It was one of the country’s worst disasters.

The ship went down 11 years ago near the site of Wednesday’s incident, though further off Jindo.

After taking a turn too fast, the overloaded and illegally-modified ferry began listing.

It then lay on its side as passengers waited for rescue, which was slow to come, before sinking as the country watched on live television.

Many of the victims were found in their cabins, where they had been told to wait by the crew while the captain and some crew members were taken aboard the first coastguard vessels to arrive at the scene.

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A Bond-villain ship prowling our waters: Why the Yantar alarms the West

Published

8 hours ago

November 19, 2025

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A Bond-villain ship prowling our waters: Why the Yantar alarms the West

The Yantar may look scruffy and unthreatening but below the surface it’s the kind of ship a Bond villain would be proud of.

In hangars below decks lurk submersibles straight out of the Bond film Thunderball. Two Consul Class mini manned subs are on board and a number of remotely operated ones.

It can “undertake surveillance in peacetime and sabotage in conflict”, in the words of Britain’s Defence Secretary John Healey.

Cable-cutting equipment combined with surveillance and intelligence gathering capabilities make this a vessel to be reckoned with.

Most worryingly though, in its most recent tangle with RAF planes sent to stalk it, the Yantar deployed a laser to distract and dazzle the British pilot.

Matthew Savill, from the Royal United Services Institute, told Sky News this was potentially a worrying hostile act.

He said: “If this had been used to dazzle the pilot and that aircraft had subsequently crashed, then maybe the case could be made that not only was it hostile but it was fundamentally an armed attack because it had the same impact as if they’d used a weapon.”

The Yantar is off our waters and here to threaten the West’s Achilles heel, says our government. Undersea infrastructure is essential to our hyper-connected world.

Undersea cables are the vital nervous system of Western civilisation. Through them courses the data that powers our 21st century economies and communications systems.

Pipelines are equally important in supplying fuel and gas that are vital to our prosperity. But they stretch for mile after mile along the seabed, exposed and all but undefended.

Their vulnerability is enough to keep Western economists and security officials awake at night, and Russia is well aware of that strategic weakness.

That is why some of the most sophisticated kit the Russian military possesses is geared towards mapping and potentially threatening them.

The Yantar’s concealed capabilities are currently being used to map that underwater network of cables and pipelines, it’s thought, but they could in the future be used to sabotage them. Russia has been blamed for mysterious underwater attacks in the recent past.

A more kinetic conflict striking at the West’s soft underwater underbelly could have a disastrous impact. Enough damage to internet cables could play havoc with Western economies.

It is a scenario security experts believe the West is not well enough prepared for.

Putting the Yantar and its Russian overseers on watch is one thing; preventing them from readying for such a doomsday outcome in time of war is quite another.