Vill EU vända på steken? : En kritisk analys av EU-kommissionens ställningstagande i frågan om animalieproduktionens klimatpåverkan

Sammanfattning: This thesis examines the ongoing European political debate on the links between livestock production and climate change. In the end of 2006 the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released their report Livestock’s long shadow, showing that livestock production represents some 18 % of the total global greenhouse gas emissions. The purpose of this paper is to explore the European Commission’s position and response to this question since the release of the report. Using Arne Naess’ argumentation analysis, statements made by the Commission will be systematically organized and broken apart. The arguments will then be critically examined and explored through the lense of selected perspectives from the sustainable development literature, as well as the FAO report itself. The analysis will show that the Commission’s position on this question stands in sharp contrast to the many findings and recommendations in the FAO report, and relies on a set of assumptions that are often both unclear and of questionable validity. The line of argument used by the Commission is closely aligned to a wider theoretical discourse on sustainable development that, as argued by many of the theorists consulted in this paper, places a disproportionate focus on economic advantages, at the expense of social and ecological interests.