Green hydrogen in the Global South: politics, spaces, and transformations

This Special Issue explores the green hydrogen transition, focusing on the Global South as a crucial frontier for this emerging industry. Countries in the Global South with cheap and abundant renewable energy resources are increasingly positioning themselves (or being positioned) as prospective producers, exporters, and consumers of green hydrogen and its derivates. Green hydrogen comes with promises of investments, jobs, access to technology, and sustainable development, promoted under green transition and decarbonization ideals. Yet, it also raises concerns about negative socio-ecological impacts, injustices, and neocolonial power dynamics. Against this backdrop, this Special Issue aims to fill gaps in the existing literature which primarily focuses on the techno-economic aspects of green hydrogen and on Northern interests and experiences. We are interested in interrogating the unfolding global hydrogen transition in and across various Global South contexts. In so doing, the Special Issue brings much-needed critical scrutiny to the political geographies of (global) green hydrogen value-chains, shaped by the rollout of new production, distribution, and consumption technologies and infrastructures, as well as the opening of new resource frontiers that re-configure property, authority, and identity arrangements in particular ways.