Green hydrogen at a crossroads

In an article circulated in southern Africa, Dr Chris Brown, the chairperson of the Namibian Chamber of Environment, blamed Germany for trying to solve its severe energy shortage in a most sensitive Namibian national park.

Unfortunately, the dilemma the Namibian green hydrogen initiative faces has been created by the secretive meetings at its very beginning. In a typical southern African way of doing things, the coastal area was divided into several plots. Very soon thereafter, a conglomerate received exclusive access to the best plot available.

Now everyone is stuck in this capitalistic approach: The developer pays annual fees, has to get a strategic environmental and social assessment (SESA) and tries to generate funds on the international capital markets.

While these bonds carry the name tag ESG, they basically forward the business interests of the conglomerate. They fail to adequately provide public goods. After all, the local population ends up as a begging third party.

The world didn’t need 28 world climate change conferences if the environmental goals could easily be delivered by a tender procurement system. Key to the new understanding is the concept of the environment as a public investment.

Triangular cooperation

As it is a global public investment, it is indeed unthinkable for a country in the northern hemisphere to solve its problems by burdening a country in the global south. It implies a change from the donor-beneficiary dynamic or the debtor-creditor dependency towards a so-called triangular cooperation.

This isn’t meant to be an effort by yet another committee, but a holistic approach concerning the content of the negotiations. Institutions such as the International Labour Organisation, the Act Church of Sweden and the Mary Robinson Foundation describe the path towards an integration of social protection and climate action.

A social protection floor is not an external nice-to-have, but an integral aspect of a socioeconomic concept and its technical realisation. Only then can business-oriented investors be invited to play their specific part.

In the capitalistic approach, finance minister Ipumbu Shiimi has to find an additional US$750 million if he wants to introduce a basic income grant. In the global protection investment approach, green hydrogen in Namibia may require US$10 billion. But the structure of the finances shall be very different.

Historically, it may be interesting to mention that energy in Europe was not the prerogative of huge multinational companies. Towns and regions began to cooperate when they discovered the potential of hydropower. Later, these cooperatives conglomerated more and more. Privatisation was a relatively recent phenomenon.

The progress of green hydrogen in Namibia should be seen in a much wider context not reduced to a SESA in a national park. It could be established as a network of co-operatives, companies, regional councils and national bodies towards an effective protection investment at the coast.

The German special delegate certainly will be able to assist in such a more holistic approach. Co-operative finance institutions in Germany should be able to raise a substantial amount. The triangular cooperation can provide a very different ‘feel’ to the green hydrogen initiative in Namibia.

**Andreas Peltzer is the spokesperson of Friends of Christian Democratic Union in Namibia.