Tobias Kalt
Biographic Data
| ID | 2484085 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tobias Kalt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tobias |
| FAMILY NAME | Kalt |
| SIGNATURE | KALT T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Universität Hamburg |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7002-1945 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 70 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Green hydrogen in the Global South
Geographies of hydrogen
Research on hydrogen – embraced as a cornerstone of the so-called global ‘energy transition’ – has mushroomed in recent years and has expanded into new disciplinary, empirical and conceptual terrains. Geographers and geographical thought have been at the forefront of an incipient yet thriving body of social science scholarship on the topic, enriching understandings of spatial, societal, (geo)political and (geo)economic dimensions of hydrogen in d…
Why coloniality matters in the hydrogen hype - A reply to Walker and Kalvelage 2025
The German scramble for green hydrogen in Namibia
Namibia is positioning itself as a green hydrogen superpower to supply the German market with the much-needed energy carrier. While the hydrogen hype is marketed as a pathway facilitating the German and European green transition that is mutually beneficial for African interests, social movements and affected communities have been denouncing green colonialist tendencies of the hydrogen rush. This paper is centring these claims. Applying a heuristi…
Postfossile Transformation
Wie grün ist Wasserstoff? Im Beitrag analysieren wir die Herausbildung einer globalen, vorgeblich klimaneutralen Wasserstoffwirtschaft. Mit Rückgriff auf das Konzept des postfossilen Extraktivismus heben wir drei Punkte hervor: Erstens ist die Wasserstofftransformation umkämpft. Zweitens zeigen sich auch in der Wasserstoffökonomie erhebliche fossile Kontinuitäten. Drittens werden extraktivistische Muster fortgesetzt, die in den Exportländern im G…
Green hydrogen transitions deepen socioecological risks and extractivist patterns
The global green hydrogen rush is prone to repeat extractivist patterns at the expense of economies, ecologies, and communities in the production zones in the Global South. With a socio-ecological risk analysis grounded in energy, water, and environmental justice scholarship, we systematically assess the risks of the ‘green’ hydrogen transition and related injustices arising in 28 countries in the Global South with regard to energy, water, land a…
Transition conflicts
Despite a broad consensus on sustainability, conflicts are increasingly prevalent in sustainability transitions. Although these conflicts significantly influence transition dynamics and socio-ecological futures, the role of conflicts in sustainability transitions remains insufficiently addressed. This paper aims to elucidate the contested dynamics of sustainability transitions by merging political ecology's emphasis on conflicts, nature, power, a…
Kolonialität des Alltags
Zwischen Konfrontation und Kooperation
Beim Ausstieg aus fossilen Energiesystemen kommt es häufig zu Konflikten. In Südafrika tritt die Konfliktlinie Arbeit versus Klima im Zuge der Konkurrenz zwischen fossilen und grünen Hegemonieprojekten zutage. Trotzdem versuchten Gewerkschaften und Klimabewegung schon früh, gemeinsame Strategien zu entwickeln. Nach einer Phase heftiger Konfrontation wurden diese zuletzt wieder aufgegriffen. Das Beispiel Südafrika zeigt, wie Transformationskonflik…
Between green extractivism and energy justice
The global race for green hydrogen is not just about decarbonisation, but also about power and profit. Examining the formation of a political project around an emerging hydrogen economy in South Africa, this article shows that a hydrogen transition is fundamentally contested. Employing (neo-)Gramscian hegemony theory and historical materialist policy analysis, it delineates four competing hydrogen initiatives in the policy debate: green extractiv…
Agents of transition or defenders of the status quo? Trade union strategies in green transitions
Green transitions create major challenges to union power in carbon-intensive economies as well as opportunities for the renewal of union power. This research asks why sometimes unions oppose or delay green transitions while other times unions are more open to green transitions and may even become strong transition supporters. In drawing on the Power Resource Approach, I argue that unions are neither natural opponents nor supporters of green trans…
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…
Shipping the sunshine? A critical research agenda on the global hydrogen transition
Large amounts of low-carbon hydrogen imports from the Global South are needed for the hydrogen transition in Germany and the EU. In an unequal global system, it is far from certain that the promised financial, technological and socio-economic benefits will materialise and outweigh the costs for the Global South countries who supply the precious energy resource to northern economies. To strengthen social science perspectives in hydrogen research, …
Jobs vs. climate justice? Contentious narratives of labor and climate movements in the coal transition in Germany
Climate and labor movements clash over the need to keep fossil fuels in the ground versus protecting industrial jobs. In examining movement-countermovement dynamics in the coal transition in Germany, I analyze how labor and climate movements engage in discursive struggles about the meaning of justice in the just transition. In combining Gramscian theory with a narrative approach, my focus is on how labor and climate movements construct narratives…
Die Ressourcenfrage (re)politisieren! Suffizienz, Gerechtigkeit und sozial-ökologische Transformation
Reaktion auf vier Beiträge in GAIA zum Thema Rohstoffe für die Energiewende
Jobs vs. climate justice? Contentious narratives of labor and climate movements in the coal transition in Germany
Climate and labor movements clash over the need to keep fossil fuels in the ground versus protecting industrial jobs. In examining movement-countermovement dynamics in the coal transition in Germany, I analyze how labor and climate movements engage in discursive struggles about the meaning of justice in the just transition. In combining Gramscian theory with a narrative approach, my focus is on how labor and climate movements construct narratives…
Between green extractivism and energy justice
The global race for green hydrogen is not just about decarbonisation, but also about power and profit. Examining the formation of a political project around an emerging hydrogen economy in South Africa, this article shows that a hydrogen transition is fundamentally contested. Employing (neo-)Gramscian hegemony theory and historical materialist policy analysis, it delineates four competing hydrogen initiatives in the policy debate: green extractiv…
Green hydrogen transitions deepen socioecological risks and extractivist patterns
The global green hydrogen rush is prone to repeat extractivist patterns at the expense of economies, ecologies, and communities in the production zones in the Global South. With a socio-ecological risk analysis grounded in energy, water, and environmental justice scholarship, we systematically assess the risks of the ‘green’ hydrogen transition and related injustices arising in 28 countries in the Global South with regard to energy, water, land a…
Transition conflicts
Despite a broad consensus on sustainability, conflicts are increasingly prevalent in sustainability transitions. Although these conflicts significantly influence transition dynamics and socio-ecological futures, the role of conflicts in sustainability transitions remains insufficiently addressed. This paper aims to elucidate the contested dynamics of sustainability transitions by merging political ecology's emphasis on conflicts, nature, power, a…
The German scramble for green hydrogen in Namibia
Namibia is positioning itself as a green hydrogen superpower to supply the German market with the much-needed energy carrier. While the hydrogen hype is marketed as a pathway facilitating the German and European green transition that is mutually beneficial for African interests, social movements and affected communities have been denouncing green colonialist tendencies of the hydrogen rush. This paper is centring these claims. Applying a heuristi…
Why coloniality matters in the hydrogen hype - A reply to Walker and Kalvelage 2025
Die Ressourcenfrage (re)politisieren! Suffizienz, Gerechtigkeit und sozial-ökologische Transformation
Reaktion auf vier Beiträge in GAIA zum Thema Rohstoffe für die Energiewende
Jobs vs. climate justice? Contentious narratives of labor and climate movements in the coal transition in Germany
Climate and labor movements clash over the need to keep fossil fuels in the ground versus protecting industrial jobs. In examining movement-countermovement dynamics in the coal transition in Germany, I analyze how labor and climate movements engage in discursive struggles about the meaning of justice in the just transition. In combining Gramscian theory with a narrative approach, my focus is on how labor and climate movements construct narratives…
Agents of transition or defenders of the status quo? Trade union strategies in green transitions
Green transitions create major challenges to union power in carbon-intensive economies as well as opportunities for the renewal of union power. This research asks why sometimes unions oppose or delay green transitions while other times unions are more open to green transitions and may even become strong transition supporters. In drawing on the Power Resource Approach, I argue that unions are neither natural opponents nor supporters of green trans…
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…
Shipping the sunshine? A critical research agenda on the global hydrogen transition
Large amounts of low-carbon hydrogen imports from the Global South are needed for the hydrogen transition in Germany and the EU. In an unequal global system, it is far from certain that the promised financial, technological and socio-economic benefits will materialise and outweigh the costs for the Global South countries who supply the precious energy resource to northern economies. To strengthen social science perspectives in hydrogen research, …
Kolonialität des Alltags
Zwischen Konfrontation und Kooperation
Beim Ausstieg aus fossilen Energiesystemen kommt es häufig zu Konflikten. In Südafrika tritt die Konfliktlinie Arbeit versus Klima im Zuge der Konkurrenz zwischen fossilen und grünen Hegemonieprojekten zutage. Trotzdem versuchten Gewerkschaften und Klimabewegung schon früh, gemeinsame Strategien zu entwickeln. Nach einer Phase heftiger Konfrontation wurden diese zuletzt wieder aufgegriffen. Das Beispiel Südafrika zeigt, wie Transformationskonflik…
Between green extractivism and energy justice
The global race for green hydrogen is not just about decarbonisation, but also about power and profit. Examining the formation of a political project around an emerging hydrogen economy in South Africa, this article shows that a hydrogen transition is fundamentally contested. Employing (neo-)Gramscian hegemony theory and historical materialist policy analysis, it delineates four competing hydrogen initiatives in the policy debate: green extractiv…
Postfossile Transformation
Wie grün ist Wasserstoff? Im Beitrag analysieren wir die Herausbildung einer globalen, vorgeblich klimaneutralen Wasserstoffwirtschaft. Mit Rückgriff auf das Konzept des postfossilen Extraktivismus heben wir drei Punkte hervor: Erstens ist die Wasserstofftransformation umkämpft. Zweitens zeigen sich auch in der Wasserstoffökonomie erhebliche fossile Kontinuitäten. Drittens werden extraktivistische Muster fortgesetzt, die in den Exportländern im G…
Green hydrogen transitions deepen socioecological risks and extractivist patterns
The global green hydrogen rush is prone to repeat extractivist patterns at the expense of economies, ecologies, and communities in the production zones in the Global South. With a socio-ecological risk analysis grounded in energy, water, and environmental justice scholarship, we systematically assess the risks of the ‘green’ hydrogen transition and related injustices arising in 28 countries in the Global South with regard to energy, water, land a…
Transition conflicts
Despite a broad consensus on sustainability, conflicts are increasingly prevalent in sustainability transitions. Although these conflicts significantly influence transition dynamics and socio-ecological futures, the role of conflicts in sustainability transitions remains insufficiently addressed. This paper aims to elucidate the contested dynamics of sustainability transitions by merging political ecology's emphasis on conflicts, nature, power, a…
Why coloniality matters in the hydrogen hype - A reply to Walker and Kalvelage 2025
The German scramble for green hydrogen in Namibia
Namibia is positioning itself as a green hydrogen superpower to supply the German market with the much-needed energy carrier. While the hydrogen hype is marketed as a pathway facilitating the German and European green transition that is mutually beneficial for African interests, social movements and affected communities have been denouncing green colonialist tendencies of the hydrogen rush. This paper is centring these claims. Applying a heuristi…
Green hydrogen in the Global South
Geographies of hydrogen
Research on hydrogen – embraced as a cornerstone of the so-called global ‘energy transition’ – has mushroomed in recent years and has expanded into new disciplinary, empirical and conceptual terrains. Geographers and geographical thought have been at the forefront of an incipient yet thriving body of social science scholarship on the topic, enriching understandings of spatial, societal, (geo)political and (geo)economic dimensions of hydrogen in d…
Political science (11 works) · Political economy (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Business (4 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Economics (4 works) · Energy and Environment Impacts (4 works) · Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Politics (4 works)