Governance Innovation or Imagination? Three Storylines of Navigating the EU’s Leading Role in Green Hydrogen Deployment in a Polarized World

Abstract Green hydrogen has been hailed as transformative in climate actions, yet global hydrogen markets and governance frameworks remain underdeveloped. The EU aims to pioneer a regulatory pathway, embedding hydrogen into its decarbonization governance framework. Centred on renewable hydrogen, the EU is moving beyond ‘color-coding’ technical classifications towards an emission intensity-based legal definition, illustrating the tension and synergy between technological neutrality and policy priority in hydrogen governance. The EU’s ‘dual-core’ ambition seeks both an internal market for green hydrogen and a level global playing field and is reinforced through the ‘Brussels Effect.’ This article explores how the EU navigates its hydrogen roadmap through strategic autonomy despite geopolitical polarization. It elaborates three interrelated storylines: the emerging internal governance framework; the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism bridging internal and external markets; and an international climate club, a potential catalyst for a global green hydrogen market to support the EU’s hydrogen ambition.