"Hydrogen Justice" Lecture with with Prof. Franziska Müller (Face-to-Face)

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Abstract: The global hydrogen transition promises a triple-win scenario of climate, economic and developmental benefits. However, whether the global hydrogen transition will indeed be a just transition is far from certain. In this regard, the concept of hydrogen justice may serve as an analytical toolkit to help examining and addressing the justice challenges associated with the global hydrogen transition. Our multidimensional conceptualisation of hydrogen justice includes procedural, distributive, restorative, relational, recognitional and epistemological justice. 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. A just hydrogen transition would put domestic energy needs first and incorporate justice principles at all scales of hydrogen governance. Professor Franziska Müller will be joined by her colleague Johanna Tunn.

JunProf. Dr. Franziska Müller is Chair of Globalisation and Global Climate Governance at the University of Hamburg. She heads the research projects “GLOCALPOWER: funds, tools & networks for an African Energy Transition” as well as “H2POLITCS” at the University of Hamburg, and is a member of the Climate Cluster of Excellence, and a PI in the DFG Research Training Group “Urban Future Making”. Her research covers global climate and energy governance, political economy of energy as well as postcolonial and poststructuralist approaches towards International Relations. Recent works are a comparison of African energy policies with regard to energy justice (Energy Research and Social Science, 2020), a close investigation of South Africa’s energy auction instrument (Review of African Political Economy, 2021), and an analysis of de-risking and energy finance flows in Zambia (Canadian Journal of Development Studies 2021). She has also published on decolonial social science methodology (Rowman & Littlefield 2020, together with Aram Ziai and Daniel Bendix) and on International Relations in the Anthropocene (Palgrave 2021, together with David Chandler and Delf Rothe).
Franziska is active as a liasion officer for the Heinrich-Böll Foundation and participates in the EU COST research network “decolonise.eu”. She has studied political science, cultural anthropology and economics in Tübingen, Frankfurt and Birmingham and held teaching positions in Darmstadt, Kassel, Pretoria and Cape Coast.

Johanna Tunn - Studies in international development. Since 2021 research associate at the department of Global Climate Governance at the University of Hamburg in the BMBF-funded research project “H2POLITICS". Previously research associate at the Department of Energy Systems (TU Berlin) and policy researcher in NGOs focusing on adaptation and mitigation. Research interests in energy and climate justice, current focus on epistemic violence in the Anthropocene.