Imagining Climate and Environmental Transformation in the European Union

• Published date: 01 March 2026
• Author: Simon Hollis
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/cep4.70031
• Section: Research Article

Contemporary European Politics

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Imagining Climate and Environmental Transformation

in the European Union

Simon Hollis

Department of Political Science, Swedish Defence University, Stockholm, Sweden

Correspondence: Simon Hollis (simon.hollis@fhs.se)

Received: 1 April 2025 | Revised: 5 December 2025 | Accepted: 8 January 2026

Keywords: climate | crisis | environment | European Union | imagination | transformation

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 trans-

formative 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.

It is no exaggeration to state that the world, and our place

within it, is in a state of pandemonium. We are not only facing

global inequality, interstate conflict and the threat of nuclear

war, but we are also experiencing the irreversible effects of

climate change and permanent alterations to the Earth's sys-

tem. Many now claim that we have entered a new geological

age called the Anthropocene, defined by the transformative

power of human agency. Unmonitored carbon emissions,

unsustainable production and other human activities are

causing permanent changes to the Earth's surface, climate,

ecosystems and biodiversity, resulting in the extinction of

species, rising seawater levels, coastal erosion and extreme

weather and other detrimental effects on planetary life.

There is clearly a need to transform: to create new political,

economic and social systems that contribute to peace, en-

vironmental sustainability and the reduction of climate emis-

sions. Many would agree that new systems are necessary when

we acknowledge how current global economic, social and

political systems continue to produce a plethora of vulner-

abilities and risks to the environment and to human civilisation

(Dryzek and Pickering 2019; Hamilton et al. 2015; Moore 2016;

Servigne et al. 2021). However, what this new system (‐form)

ought to look like and the means by which it can be obtained

(‐trans) remains unclear. From apocalyptic images to geo-

technical utopias, there is no shortage of imagining future

scenarios, yet comparatively less attention has been placed on

how underlying value systems – a socially shared set of un-

derstandings about how society ought to function – shape

current efforts to trans‐form.

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This is important to understand

because it can shed light on why transformation is not occur-

ring to the extent to which many consider necessary for meeting

climate and sustainability goals.

The purpose of this article is to gain empirical insight into how

the climate and environment are imagined as precursors to

transformative action. As a significant actor in climate and

environmental governance, the European Union (EU) provides

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided

the original work is properly cited.

© 2026 The Author(s). Contemporary European Politics published by University Association of Contemporary European Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

1 of 13 Contemporary European Politics, 2026; 4:e70031

https://doi.org/10.1002/cep4.70031