Lego has failed to produce emissions-free building blocks, despite a five-year effort to do so. If we can’t decarbonise something as simple as children’s toys, how can we do so for the entire economy?
Fact:
This is another example of a logical fallacy. It’s true that Lego has, thus far, failed to produce blocks using biopolymers (plant-based plastics), but plastics are nowhere near as damaging to the environment as using oil for transportation. In fact, they are only responsible for 4.5 percent of global emissions, as opposed to transport, which accounts for 21 percent. This is because most of the carbon used in making plastics is stored in the finished product and not released into the atmosphere. As long as those products are properly disposed of at the end of their life, the carbon they contain will not contribute to global warming.
Biopolymers, by contrast, can actually help reduce emissions, as they are made from the carbon sequestered by plants – that is, carbon that has been sucked out of the atmosphere via photosynthesis. If we could make as many of our plastic products from biopolymers instead of oil, these would have a positive impact on climate change, by acting as carbon sinks. Even if we could make half of all plastics from them, this would provide 10 percent of all the carbon sequestration required each year to reach net zero.
Finally, it should be remembered that net zero does not mean absolute zero. There are some things which we simply will not be able to make without fossil fuels. They are the ones we’ll have to compensate for by sequestering carbon. Who knows – perhaps Lego bricks will be among their number. Or just perhaps the company will solve the problem somewhere down the track and produce a zero-carbon Lego brick. After all, it wasn’t so very long ago when people thought getting to the moon was impossible.