The German scramble for green hydrogen in Namibia: Colonial legacies revisited?

Abstract

Namibia is positioning itself as a green hydrogen superpower to supply the German market with the much-needed energy carrier. While the hydrogen hype is marketed as a pathway facilitating the German and European green transition that is mutually beneficial for African interests, social movements and affected communities have been denouncing green colonialist tendencies of the hydrogen rush. This paper is centring these claims. Applying a heuristic of green colonialism along the lines of externalisation, enactment, expansion, exclusion and empowerment, we highlight colonial tendencies of the hydrogen rush in Namibia. While still in a nascent stadium, current developments indicate patterns to transform Southern economies according to European interest, which can then uphold their allegedly superior image as renewable energy pioneers. Our study indicates that the green hydrogen rush resembles a longue durée of (neo)colonial violence: while clinging to old colonial patterns, it takes advantage of the post-colonial state, and at the same time uses narratives of contemporary multiple crises to advance and legitimise a supposedly green, but intrinsically violent transition.