Imagining Climate and Environmental Transformation in the European Union

ABSTRACT The EU is clearly committed to its response to the climate and environmental crisis. Transformative policy solutions and targets have been set within the Union to restore 90% of degraded ecosystems and reach climate neutrality by 2050. The EU also remains one of the biggest donors of climate and environmental development aid. Green growth, good governance, adaptation and mitigation strategies, technology, corporate social responsibility, and other locales of change are intended to lead toward a more sustainable, secure and equitable future. These policies are commendable, but what potential do they have as transformative capacities? This article examines the underlying value systems that legitimise current EU climate and environmental policy for the purpose of critically reflecting on the Union's ability to effect fundamental changes to social, political and economic systems. Via a discourse and visual analysis on speeches, policy documents and images, the outcome suggests that policy development ought to reflect on human‐nature interconnectedness to overcome the limitation of its eco‐modernist and utilitarian value system.