Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation: Sustainability Governance in the Hydrogen Sector

The establishment of an international hydrogen economy plays a crucial role in the development of a net-zero economy and the decarbonisation of hard-to-electrify sectors. Limiting greenhouse gas emissions and ensuring sufficient renewable electricity generation for climate-friendly hydrogen production are central to this. However, the ramp-up of a hydrogen economy has implications that go beyond climate protection and decarbonisation, including impacts on the use of natural resources, such as water and land, and possible conflicts of interest regarding the protection of natural ecosystems and biodiversity. Effects on existing economic sectors, like tourism or agriculture, and the distribution of income and value-added within a hydrogen economy are additional dimensions for sustainable development in the sector.

Sustainability governance in the hydrogen sector and its geopolitical implications

These various sustainability dimensions also have geopolitical and geo-economic implications. The design of sustainability governance plays an important role in the development of international partnerships and may influence the choice of partners, both for importing and exporting countries. As a result, it has a significant influence on the geographic distribution of investments, on who benefits from investments and who is involved. It thus influences the development of the emerging net-zero economic geography and the associated socio-economic and political consequences.

The mechanisms and framework conditions for sustainability governance in the hydrogen sector will be politically negotiated at various levels of governance over the coming years. These include the development of regulatory frameworks for the production and use of hydrogen in key demand markets, the establishment of internationally recognized standards and certification systems for internationally traded hydrogen and its derivatives, and, building on this, the development of international financing mechanisms. The latter includes not only sustainability criteria in the financing and promotion of hydrogen investments by public entities, but it increasingly also affects the funding decisions of private investors.

The GET Sustainable Hydrogen project

The project "Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation: Sustainability Governance in the Hydrogen Sector" (GET Sustainable Hydrogen), funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, maps the international sustainability governance landscape in the hydrogen sector and identifies opportunities, challenges and remaining gaps in this context. In addition, implications of sustainability governance for the development of global supply chains and other geostrategic aspects of an international hydrogen economy will be analysed. On this basis, entry-points for the further development of the governance architecture are identified and elaborated in dialogue with partners. This includes the further development of certification systems, their adoption in regulatory frameworks, trade policy agreements and partnerships as well as the development of capacities and practices for sustainable project development and financing. The perspectives of partners from other importing countries and potential export countries in Africa and Latin America are taken into account. The research results will feed into the work of the Federal Foreign Office with partner countries in the hydrogen sector.