Resisting the New Green Colonialism

In recent months, discussions about green hydrogen in Tunisia have dominated the media, particularly concerning the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on May 28, 2024, between TotalEnergies (a French multinational integrated energy and petroleum company), Eren Groupe (a French company specializing in renewable energy and resource efficiency), Verbund (Austria’s leading electricity company), and the Tunisian government. This MoU aims to explore the implementation of a large green hydrogen project named “H2 Notos.” The project is intended for export to Central Europe via the “SoutH2 Corridor” pipelines, which run from the Northern African coast in Tunisia through Italy, Austria, and Germany; it aims to produce 200,000 tons of green hydrogen annually during its initial phase, with the potential to scale up production to one million tons per year in South Tunisia. This infrastructure enables the supply of low-cost renewable hydrogen produced in the South to key European demand clusters and is expected to be fully operational as early as 2030.

Shortly thereafter, on May 31, 2024, another MoU was signed with the Saudi company ACWA. This agreement plans to produce 600,000 tons of green hydrogen annually in three phases, also for export to Europe. Tunisia is now experiencing a surge of interest in hydrogen. On July 29, 2024, Industry, Mines, and Energy Minister Fatma Thabet Chiboub signed six new MoUs with various foreign corporations from Britain, France, Belgium, and Germany. It’s as if the country is being swept up by a hydrogen fever.

Tunisia aims to position itself as a hub for green hydrogen production, with ambitions to export six million tons annually by 2050, as outlined in the Tunisian Hydrogen Strategy. Despite its renewable-energy potential, Tunisia currently faces a significant energy deficit, which stood at approximately 50 percent in 2022. Tunisian Secretary of State for Energy Transition Wael Chouchane has emphasized the potential of green hydrogen to address the country’s energy deficit and generate substantial employment opportunities.

However, rather than prioritizing domestic renewable-energy investments to generate green electricity to close this gap, the government plans to use this electricity to produce green hydrogen for export to the EU. This approach, while central to Tunisia’s energy transition strategy, mirrors similar initiatives in other African nations, such as Namibia, South Africa, Egypt, and Morocco.

Critics argue that the EU’s push toward a green hydrogen economy, touted as mutually beneficial for both the EU and exporting countries from the Global South, neglects several critical issues. These include the potential negative impacts on water resources, energy access, as well as concerns over land grabbing and displacement. Moreover, the economic gains for Southern countries may be limited, as they continue to import high-added-value technologies while exporting raw materials with lower-added value, reinforcing unequal trade relationships.

Despite EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen’s assertion in her speech on June 16, 2022, that “the idea of spheres of influence are ghosts of the last century,” it appears that Africans are still operating within the sphere of the EU. It is clear that the EU, especially Germany, is pushing for a green hydrogen economy where they dominate the value chains and technologies while externalizing the socio-environmental costs to the peripheries (i.e., the Global South). This can be seen as a new form of energy imperialism, where European countries, or more broadly, the imperial cores, aim to use the continent as a battery for their needs.

There is nothing new here; it strongly echoes the colonial past. EU countries continue to have an essential need to extract resources and wealth from their peripheries, especially from Africa. The raw materials these regions possess, combined with an undervalued and disciplined labor force, continue to sustain the so-called developed world while causing a massive flow of wealth and resources from Africa to Europe. This pattern of exploitation and economic constraint is not new and strongly resonates with the arguments made by Walter Rodney in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. In this book, Rodney explains how European colonialism systematically extracted wealth from Africa and imposed structures that hindered the continent’s capacity for self-sustained development. The ongoing extraction of resources under the guise of projects like the green hydrogen initiative in Tunisia risks perpetuating this cycle of dependency and exploitation, undermining local energy sovereignty and development.

The green hydrogen pipedream was introduced to Tunisia by Germany following the signing of a MoU in December 2020. During the last four years, the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) funded and shaped the national hydrogen strategy. By mid-2024, the first MoU for the production and export of green hydrogen by the private companies mentioned above was signed.

However these foreign-dicated neocolonial green hydrogen projects are not passively accepted by Tunisians but are questioned and scrutinized. There is even popular resistance. On April 24, coinciding with World Anti-Colonialism Day, a small protest took place in front of the GIZ Energy Cluster in Tunis. The protest was organized by a coalition of organizations, including the Stop Pollution Movement, trade unions, student unions, political parties, and pro-Palestine activists. These activists joined the protest as they wanted to highlight that Germany not only is pursuing neocolonial projects in Tunisia but is also complicit in and actively supporting the genocide in Gaza by being the largest European supplier of weapons to Israel, providing 30 percent of Israel’s weapons between 2019 and 2023.

During the protest, one of the main demands focused on blocking and stopping the planned water and land-intensive green hydrogen projects and denouncing the German organization’s control and influence over the Tunisian energy agenda. This explains the target and place of the protest in front of the GIZ Energy Cluster, rather than the nearby Ministry of  Industry, Mines, and Energy. Protestors believe that GIZ is the main decision-maker when it comes to renewable energies and green hydrogen.

The protestors called for energy sovereignty that is people-centric and a just energy transition that serves the country’s needs first. 

According to the Tunisian national hydrogen strategy supported by GIZ, the plan is to use 248 million cubic meters of desalinated water by 2050, which equals the consumption of five million Tunisian citizens—approximately half the current population in a country considered one of the most water-scarce in the world. The planned green hydrogen production in Tunisia is also land-intensive, requiring 500,000 hectares (twice the area of Greater Tunis) to produce the renewable energy necessary for hydrogen production that will be exported. This land, referred to as the “hydrogen valley,” is located in the southern part of Tunisia, a region already suffering from severe water scarcity and some land conflicts.

The southern region is known for its communal land belonging to Tunisian tribes and locals who use it for pastoralism and small-scale farming. The hydrogen strategy fails to address how this land will be acquired, raising concerns about land grabbing. An article by the Working Group for Energy Democracy discusses this particular issue occurring in South Tunisia by profit-driven energy corporations, highlighting the disconnect between the strategy’s goals and the needs of local communities. Besides, it seems absurd that a country that imports its own food uses its land and water for hydrogen production to serve another country’s energy needs. After the signing of the two MoUs mentioned above, several social movements, including the Stop Pollution Movement and the Tunisian Forum for Social and Economic Rights, published statements. They consider green hydrogen production and export to be another mechanism of plunder that primarily serves the EU’s energy needs.

It is worth mentioning that the Tunisian parliament has been tasked to discuss a new draft law to encourage green hydrogen. However, this draft law primarily offers foreign investors harmful tax incentives and advantages. This means there is a pressing need to engage with parliamentarians on this issue as well. When there is resistance, there is hope. A just transition is possible for Tunisia and the entire African continent. Given the recent legislative developments, creating a movement opposed to the new green hydrogen colonialism is becoming urgent and necessary, not just at the country level but across the entire continent. Such a decolonial Pan-African movement is needed to defend our lands, water, food, and energy systems. We Africans must prioritize our needs and work toward achieving energy and food sovereignty. The priority in our continent is to provide cheap green electricity to the 600 million people currently lacking access to it, rather than rushing to produce green hydrogen for the EU. It is crucial to follow and support these dynamics against green hydrogen and connect the struggle from South Africa to Namibia and up to the North African countries.

Saber Ammar is an activist, researcher, and Arab region program assistant at Transnational Institute (TNI).

This piece is from a partnership between Africa Is a Country and The Elephant.

Photo: sirine kh on Unsplash