Canada as a clean energy ‘superpower’? Green hydrogen, between deployment and disavowal

Canada’s potential to generate more renewable energy than it needs has led to visions of it becoming a leader in low-carbon hydrogen. In the Atlantic provinces, this has involved proposals aimed at producing ‘green’ hydrogen and its derivatives, predominantly for export to Europe. Despite trade being a contributor to carbon emissions, green hydrogen offers an alternative vision where trade is used to spur a clean energy transition and decarbonize hard-to-abate industries, driving growth, jobs and investment. While critics expose the contradictions of hydrogen, they often fail to recognize the enduring appeal of trade success, materially and symbolically, linked to being a ‘clean energy superpower.’ Drawing on tensions around green ‘leadership’ and local ‘risk,’ I argue critics tend to disavow the inconsistencies of their own position, outwardly opposing green trade in Canada, while depending on, and even encouraging, green industrial production, growth and trade elsewhere.