Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges that society faces. It is also one of the European Union’s most prioritized issues. The European Green Deal is an initiative developed by the EU to meet the challenges that comes with climate change. Within this initiative, a package of proposals to update the EU's climate legislation has been developed: “Fit for 55”. This package contains proposals in various areas, one of which concerns the achievement of climate goals in the debated area of the land use and forestry sectors (LULUCF) To achieve a critical analysis of the proposals put forward, Bacchi’s “What's the problem represented to be?” (WPR) is used. This form of policy analysis uncovers the policy's problem representations and its underlying assumptions, silences, and effects, as well as how the problem representations are constructed, reproduced, and communicated. The analysis resulted in two problem representations: Unsustainable forestry and land use and the industry within these sectors as a problem and insufficient monitoring and control of land use and forestry as a problem. Human behavior and how it affects the climate, the binary relationships between humans and the environment, and the effects this produces are discussed throughout this essay.
2023-06-20