Hydrogen justice

For a rapid energy transition to renewable energy, green hydrogen is increasingly considered a solution to a myriad of challenges: climate neutrality, clean energy supply, and decoupling of growth and carbon emissions. However, whether the global hydrogen transition will indeed be a just transition is far from certain. This paper introduces the concept of hydrogen justice as an analytical toolkit to help examining justice challenges of the global hydrogen transition. Placing hydrogen justice at the nexus of energy, water and climate justice, and incorporating crucial insights from political ecology and decolonial studies we highlight potential hydrogen injustices and suggest a six-dimensional concept of hydrogen justice: procedural, distributive, restorative, relational, recognitional and epistemological justice. Our research explores socio-ecological, political and economic conditions in hydrogen target countries and examines emerging hydrogen projects and partnerships. Hydrogen injustices may manifest around issues of energy access in countries with high rates of energy poverty, water access in arid regions, as well as forced displacements, impairments of Indigenous livelihoods and the strengthening of authoritarian rule. We conclude that hydrogen injustices result from the interplay of global hydrogen governance and local conditions in producing countries. We illustrate this with examples from transnational hydrogen projects situated in Morocco and Namibia. Finally, we suggest strategies for redressing hydrogen injustices by integrating justice principles at all scales of hydrogen governance.


Introduction
For a rapid energy transition to renewable energy (RE), green hydrogen is increasingly considered a solution to a myriad of challenges: climate neutrality, clean energy supply, and decoupling of growth and carbon emissions 1 . Unsurprisingly, the EU, Germany and other industrial countries cherish green hydrogen. The global hydrogen production market is expected to grow by up to 9.2% annually throughout 2030 (ETC 2021), with green hydrogen projected to play a major role in fostering decarbonization in hard-toabate sectors, such as heavy industries and transport (FMTE 2020). While Germany and the EU are able to provide hydrogen technologies that cover the entire value chain, a lack of physical resources for domestic generation (Hank et al 2020) means that countries in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East have been identified as export production sites for Europe's future hydrogen economy. However, there is a huge gap between technological euphoria and the potential socio-ecological consequences of large-scale hydrogen production. Indeed, the emerging hydrogen economy relies on unequal power relations and interventions in socio-ecological systems in countries of the Global South in order to reach European climate and energy goals. Hydrogen generation, hydrogen infrastructure and hydrogen governance are associated with several socio-ecological and political risks (Koj et al 2019), which have so far not been sufficiently considered.
We look at hydrogen risks through a justice lens (see also Dillman and Heinonen 2022). Hydrogen production may interfere with environmental Water justice analyses and politicizes justice if land rights, water distribution and marine ecosystems are affected. Energy justice may be at stake in terms of issues of energy access, distribution and decisionmaking over energy policies. Likewise, water justice is targeted regarding access to clean water, unjust pricing structures and privatized infrastructure. From a global justice perspective, hydrogen supply chains contribute to unequal ecological exchange by extracting and transferring energy resources from south to north (Hickel et al 2022). Furthermore, the focus on market readiness creates the risk that insufficient attention is paid to establishing hydrogen governance frameworks according to sustainability and human rights criteria, public participation opportunities, technology and knowledge transfer, and global/domestic policy alignment. Considering that these aspects have not been sufficiently addressed in the existing environmental justice literature, we introduce 'hydrogen justice' as a concept for analyzing and addressing socio-ecological injustices associated with newly emerging hydrogen regimes.
To delineate our understanding of hydrogen justice, we first recapture environmental, energy, water and climate justice debates. We then explore how the turn towards a green hydrogen economy may require reconceptualization to address new justice challenges. Placing hydrogen justice at the nexus of energy, water and climate justice, we highlight potential hydrogen injustices and suggest a six-dimensional concept of hydrogen justice. We illustrate this with examples from transnational hydrogen projects situated in Morocco and Namibia. Finally, we suggest strategies for redressing hydrogen injustices by integrating justice principles at all scales of hydrogen governance.

The case for hydrogen justice
Rooted in the Black Radical Tradition and the US civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s (Pulido andde Lara 2018, Galvin 2020), environmental justice refers to the uneven distribution of environmental costs and benefits along the lines of race, gender and class. Coining the term 'environmental racism' , Bullard explored how environmental injustice manifests and how these inequalities can be addressed and eventually overcome (2005).
Based on these transformative heuristics, the environmental justice debate has since expanded to specific dimensions of environmental problems, resulting in concepts such as climate justice, energy justice and water justice (Jenkins et al 2016, Sultana 2018. Environmental justice scholars have drawn on liberal justice theory (Rawls 1971/1991, Fraser 1999, Sen 2009) to develop the concept further. However, this has severed the concept from its social movement roots. Drawing on the experience of environmental justice movements, Schlosberg (2004) expanded the concept of environmental justice to include recognition of differences and plurality of participation. Current debates in political ecology and decolonial theory seek to strengthen social movement connections (Pulido andde Lara 2018, Svarstad andBenjaminsen 2020). To grasp the justice controversies along the hydrogen production chain, we draw on energy, water and climate justice because their foci closely relate to the major challenges of water-and energy-intensive hydrogen production for a global market.
Energy justice highlights the socio-ecological dimensions, power struggles and transformative qualities of energy systems. Based on liberal justice theory, Kirsten Jenkins and her co-authors consider energy justice a threefold concept combining distributive, recognitional and procedural justice Dworkin 2015, Jenkins et al 2016). Distributive justice refers to the distributional effects of transition processes; that is, access to RE, affordability of RE and fair cost/benefit-sharing. Recognitional justice asks whether transition strategies recognize, reflect and respect the needs of vulnerable groups; for example, by co-designing communitybased RE projects. Procedural justice focuses on democratic issues of political participation. Recent conceptual advancements include a more nuanced understanding of justice adapted to post-colonial realities. Heffron and McCauley (2017) expand the energy justice concept by adding the dimension of restorative justice. This encourages decision-makers to engage with (historical) injustices caused by energy projects and allows drawing a line to forms of energy colonialism (Lehman 2019, Dunlap 2021. Brato et al (2018) and Barthel (2019) underscore that the energy justice debate needs to reflect on the coloniality of energy transitions both in epistemic terms by privileging Western transition knowledge and material terms by restricting access to technology and finance. Furthermore, Sovacool et al (2017) critically assessed the liberal-cosmopolitan norm set that pervades current understandings of energy justice and seek to pluralize and provincialize energy justice by linking the concept to norms stemming from Southern cosmovisions. Water justice also stems from environmental justice debates (Harris et al 2015) but is closely connected to human rights traditions (Mirosa and Harris 2012), given water's essential role for human and ecosystem survival. Water justice analyses and politicizes fundamental questions of water use, supply and governance (Boelens et al 2018). In contrast to the energy justice debate, the water justice literature is more scattered, combining elements from political ecology, critical geography, political science and decolonial approaches. Drawing on political ecology and political philosophy, Zwarteveen and Boelens (2014, p 154) develop a multifaceted conceptualization of water justice that considers its material and economic dimensions ('redistribution') and its cultural and political dimensions ('recognition' and 'participation'). Empirical work on water justice engages with the established model of integrated water resource management and points to its shortcomings and depoliticizing effects due to its neglect of repercussions of scarcity and privatization (Allan 2006, Neal et al 2014. Joy et al (2014) underscore that water justice needs to reflect the characteristics of water as a fundamental source of life, pay attention to vital issues of water access, rights and equity, and contribute to repoliticising water governance. Indigenous water justice perspectives underscore this by centering on the right to self-determination, referring to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The right to cultural and political self-determination requires that Indigenous Peoples' decisions on water use and Indigenous human-water relations need to be respected (Robinson et al 2017, pp 852-7). To unlock the transformative potential of research on water justice for struggles for water justice, Grafton et al (2022, p 1) suggest concentrating on a set of questions that assess how water injustices occur (to whom, when and where) and explain their causes (why) to identify concrete pathways towards achieving water justice.
Thirdly, climate justice informs our approach. Global climate justice focuses on historically uneven impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptive capacities and responsibilities in the climate crisis, thus claiming climate debt and compensation for loss and damage (Sultana 2022), and criticizing techno-managerial solutions to climate change. In addition, climate justice scholars examine how green transitions reproduce global inequalities and create carbon/green colonialism (Dunlap 2021) visible in the appropriation of land and resources in the Global South for carbon offsets and for green technologies, such as agrofuels, lithium batteries and solar panels (Zografos and Robbins 2020).
We develop the concept of hydrogen justice against the background of the current push for green hydrogen that may significantly impact the global energy transition due to the large expansion of RE capacities for hydrogen production. With estimates that in 2050 hydrogen could meet up to 12% of global energy consumption (IRENA 2022, p 10), this has repercussions for energy access, land and resource use, RE policies, and global energy governance. As hydrogen megaprojects require large amounts of land, energy and water, typical injustices related to the expansion of RE, such as displacements, unfair pricing structures or land-use conflicts (Rule 2014, Lehman 2019, Dunlap 2021) may also become a common feature of the hydrogen economy. This may also be true for water injustices related to water scarcity, privatization and pricing schemes, or degradation of marine ecosystems due to desalination plants (Sadhwani et al 2005, Munia et al 2016. Placing hydrogen justice at the nexus of energy justice and water justice focuses on potential injustices arising in both fields. In addition, a global climate justice perspective highlights global injustices and power asymmetries associated with climate mitigation that surface in the global hydrogen economy and its modes of governance. Practising climate justice thus entails taking responsibility for the root causes and impacts of climate change, as well as solidarity with and centering on marginalized voices in addressing the global crisis.
We propose a multifold understanding of hydrogen justice that builds on the theoretical foundations of the debates on environmental, energy, water and climate justice in terms of procedural, distributive, recognitional and restorative justice. To integrate post-and decolonial contributions, we include dimensions of epistemic justice (Bhambra 2021, p 10, DeBoom 20212021) and relational justice that focuses on human-nature relations (Linton andBudds 2014, Todd 2014

Methodology
To assess the potential and shortcomings of future hydrogen economies, much research focuses on quantifying the economic costs of hydrogen supply (Hank et  Less is known about socio-ecological impacts with respect to justice-related concerns, such as energy and water access, labour regimes or impact on vulnerable livelihoods, particularly in the Global South. To shed light on the ways in which hydrogen production may interfere with water, energy and climate justice, we outline implications for hydrogen (in)justices along the six dimensions introduced above. We illustrate the concept's analytical value through a qualitative case study of the two exemplary cases, Morocco and Namibia, that are in the spotlight of German hydrogen diplomacy (Yin 2017). As case studies, we collected contextual data on political, socio-economic and socio-ecological conditions in the two countries, conducted stakeholder mappings as well as document and media analyses about planned hydrogen projects, and investigated the German hydrogen partnerships with Morocco and Namibia (FMST 2021) 2 .

Applying hydrogen justice: case studies from Morocco and Namibia
Hydrogen justice reveals how the planned expansion of hydrogen production may interfere with people's livelihoods. Moreover, hydrogen injustices are interwoven with previously existing structural injustices, such as an unequal global political economy, violations of labour laws, or gender inequalities 3 . Due to their high wind and solar potentials as well as low projected production costs, Morocco and Namibia are featured in Germany's hydrogen strategy. In Namibia, Hyphen Hydrogen Energy, a joint venture between the German energy company Enertrag and the investment company Nicholas Holdings, is planning a large-scale project that will produce 300000 tonnes per year of green hydrogen for export and whose construction costs approximate Namibia's annual GDP. Likewise, the German-Moroccan Hydrogen Alliance promotes hydrogen production and the establishment of a Power-to-X research platform, although the unresolved Western Sahara conflict complicates hydrogen diplomacy. We illustrate the applicability of the hydrogen justice concept by analyzing both cases along the six justice dimensions.
(a) Procedural justice: Morocco has developed one of the most ambitious RE strategies in the world and launched its own hydrogen roadmap that focuses on integrating domestic industries to reduce import dependency. Morocco's comprehensive RE policy framework and integrated 2 Our research group H2POLITICS zooms in on socio-ecological risks and injustices related to hydrogen production across a broad sample of country cases in the Global South in a forthcoming paper (H2POLITICS 2022). 3 We can consider these forms of 'background injustice' (Ronzoni 2009), that is, injustices that are entangled with the global order, both due to global norms that promote structural inequality and historical structures such as postcoloniality (Waligore 2018).
hydrogen strategy involve a variety of actors. However, despite commitments to transfer ownership of the energy transition process to its citizens, Morocco's energy transition has been a largely centralized process driven by the government, ministries, private energy companies and European development banks and institutions (Müller et al 2021, Okpanachi et al 2022. This indicates that the energy transition is rather guided by market forces than by public interest. Inadequate community consultations regarding large-scale solar projects (Hamouchene 2016), as well as low freedom of dissent and restricted spaces for human rights activists (Aziki 2020), raise concerns that civil participation is excluded, if not suppressed, in Morocco's emerging hydrogen economy. In another instance, Namibia envisions building an entire hydrogen economy from scratch, requiring large investments in infrastructure and education. Whether these developments are guided by the interests of investors or if decisions are taken in an open, democratic and inclusive process will be the litmus test for procedural justice. Systematic and just participation at every stage in energy decision-making is crucial in order to achieve a just hydrogen transition. (b) Relational justice: RE projects in Morocco have led to land conflicts with local communities. For example, the Noor Ouarzazate solar project took place on 3000 ha of land that was communally owned by a Berber clan and used for pastoralism. The administration of the solar project restricted the herders' access to the land and replaced local institutions that governed the land as commons with state and market institutions that commodified the land and resources (Ryser 2018). Local communities and civil society groups voiced their opposition to the land grab and unsuccessfully demanded a fair share of the project's benefits (Cantoni and Rignall 2019). Future hydrogen projects will lead to additional land acquisitions that may displace local communities and damage local institutions. Likewise, in Namibia, the construction of large-scale desalination plants, solar parks and infrastructure for the hydrogen economy is planned. It remains to be seen to what extent large-scale infrastructures will restrict the habitat of pastoralists and nomads, interfere with their ecosystems and thus change traditional socio-cultural relationalities or replace them with commodified human-nature relations. To consider these aspects, established modes of environmental impact assessments are not sufficient, as socio-cultural dimensions need to be covered. (c) Recognitional justice: Morocco partially sources its RE from the occupied territories of Western Sahara, whilst Sahrawis are denied access to energy and water. The dependence on disputed territories for green hydrogen supply may not only perpetuate these injustices, but further weaken Sahrawi claims for recognition and self-determination (Allan et al 2021). In Namibia, the rights of Indigenous Peoples might be affected as well. The envisaged Namibian hydrogen ecosystem covers large parts of the country, including the Kunene region in the North, which is home to Indigenous communities. As marginalized and discriminated population groups are particularly affected by water and energy poverty, recognitional justice holds that their perspectives should be integrated into hydrogen policies, labour laws and contracts. (d) Distributive justice: While RE produced in Western Sahara is being exported to neighbouring regions, Saharawi people face recurring power cuts and prohibitive costs for electricity bills. Meanwhile, jobs in the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara energy industry have almost exclusively been allocated to Moroccan settlers, raising the question whether the distribution of the costs and benefits from hydrogen production will follow the status quo of 'discrimination along ethnic lines' (Allan et al 2022, p 59). In Namibia, the project's export orientation carries the risk of creating an enclave economy, in case integration into the energy production chain that would stimulate local economies is not put into practice. If this is the case, benefits primarily accumulate in the Global North, which imports green hydrogen and sells hydrogen technology, while few spillover effects are generated for the local economy. In a similar sense, in a country with an electrification rate of 56.3% (World Bank n.d.), who gets access to the 5 GW RE that Hyphen plans to generate will be an issue of distributive justice. (e) Restorative justice: Global hydrogen governance is prone to reproduce historical injustices through hydrogen diplomacy. The soft governance approach towards Morocco may be a case in point, as long as the claims of the Polisario liberation movement for self-determination of the Saharawi people are downplayed in return for hydrogen supply and energy security. Several European governments have withdrawn their support for the UN resolution for a referendum on independence in Western Sahara, while aiming to improve energy relations with Morocco and build hydrogen partnerships (Gilmartin 2022). As a former colony of the German Empire, Namibia repeatedly demanded restorative justice through financial reparations from the German government for the colonial atrocities of the 1904 Herero and Nama genocide. After many years of denial, in 2021 the German government admitted to the genocide and offered a recompense of €1.1 billion over 30 years (Cotterill 2022). In addition, German and South African colonial rule has led to highly unequal land distribution, with the white population owning 70% of land in Namibia (Namibia Statistics Agency 2018, p 38). To pay respect to this delicate historical heritage and the current reconciliation attempts, hydrogen partnerships must take a stance and remedy colonial injustices by transferring ownership, technology and financial and material benefits to the producing countries. (f) Epistemic justice: While the German-Namibian hydrogen governance framework claims that the emerging hydrogen economy must adhere to good governance and mutually beneficial standards, this has not yet been well implemented. The tender for the project was allocated in an opaque process, driven by technomanagerial and cost-effectiveness criteria (Links 2022). Hydrogen policies and strategies may lead to epistemic injustices if they pay insufficient attention to local knowledge systems and reproduce a colonial or Eurocentric knowledge order. For example, colonial narratives of development and modernization that accompany hydrogen plans may misconstrue the social and political realities of marginalized communities. While the Moroccan state links the production of green hydrogen to decarbonization, energy independence and new market opportunities, the development of RE for hydrogen production in Western Sahara territories denotes exploitation, occupation and oppression for Sahrawis. These developmental narratives obfuscate the experiences of Sahrawis, of the exploitative practices of state powers and private corporations, as well as the violent practices that aim at silencing dissenting voices.

Discussion and conclusion
The cases of Morocco and Namibia indicate that the envisaged hydrogen partnerships risk enforcing inequities rather than leading to a just transition, as long as the justice dimensions are not covered systematically. We find that hydrogen (in)justices result from interdependent processes at the global and local level: Hydrogen (in)justices are a function of the interplay of the rules of the global hydrogen economy, hydrogen partnerships and the design of hydrogen projects together with the specific social, environmental, economic and political conditions in producing countries. This means that a neoliberal global hydrogen market, import-focused hydrogen strategies in consuming countries and export-oriented hydrogen projects in producing countries increase the risk of hydrogen injustices as do high drought risks, high energy poverty, lack of RE in the energy mix, lack of participation opportunities, and weak labour, social and environmental standards in producing countries.
Researching the often overlooked socio-ecological, political and economic risks of the global hydrogen transition from a justice perspective responds to the call for more critical social science research on the hydrogen transition than Hanusch and Schad (2021) and Kalt and Tunn (2022) have made. Furthermore, this paper contributes to transition studies that have started to take the issue of equity and justice more seriously (Carley and Konisky 2020). Creating a conceptual framework for hydrogen (in)justice allows to centre justice principles on transition research, to identify injustices in the global hydrogen transition and to set conditions for a just hydrogen transition. Whether the hydrogen economy bears the potential to mitigate environmental impacts, support affected communitie, and create sustainable energy futures and decent jobs ultimately depends on incorporating principles of justice at all scales: from the global rules of the hydrogen economy and the decision-making arenas of global hydrogen governance down to the local contextual conditions that matter for the siting, design and implementation of hydrogen projects.

Data availability statement
All data that support the findings of this study are included within the article (and any supplementary files).

Funding
This article was supported by the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology's funding line INSIGHT (Grant Number: 16INS102A).