A limited green criminological turn in the EU approach to climate change? Mapping representations of climate change as ecocide

This paper explores the evolution of the representation of climate change as ecocide in EU policy circles. Premised upon and bringing a green criminological lens into EU climate policy, it asks to what extent and in what ways the EU approaches climate change as ecocide, and how such representations link to EU climate policy and legislation. Methodologically, it conducts a document analysis to explore intra-EU deliberations and triangulates these findings with the main themes that emerge from a scoping literature review. The paper subsequently assesses the main aspects, and the breadth and depth, of this criminological turn and the associated prospects for a law of ecocide in EU climate policy. This is the first empirical case study of the EU, and any global actor’s, representation of climate change as ecocide, and its impact on climate policy.