Tobias Kalt
Contact
- Phone
- +49 461 805 2397
- tobias.kalt-PleaseRemoveIncludingDashes-@uni-flensburg.de
- Building
- Gebäude Riga 5
- Room
- RIG 502
- Street
- Mitscherlich-Nielsen-Straße 2e
- Post code / City
- 24943 Flensburg
Institutions
- Name
- Center for Research on Sustainability and Transformation (CREST)
- Position
- Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
About
Tobias Kalt, Ph.D., is a political scientist who examines transformation processes in global energy and industrial systems from a political-ecological perspective. A key focus of his work is the development of a global hydrogen economy in response to energy and climate crises. Central to his research are the resulting conflicts, power structures, and questions of justice.
His research interests also include:
• Socio-ecological transformation and the associated transition conflicts
• South-North relations, green extractivism, and energy justice
• Labor environmentalism and the role of trade unions and workers in transition processes
• (Neo-)Gramscian approaches in political ecology
Since 04/2025: Research Associate at HWR Berlin in the project "Industrial Workers in Transition"
Since 08/2024: Research Associate at the Center for Research on Sustainability and Transformation (CREST) at the European University Flensburg (EUF)
10/2017 – 07/2024: Ph.D. in Political Science with the dissertation "No Jobs on a Dead Planet: Conflict and Cooperation between Labor and Climate Movements in Coal Transitions in Germany and South Africa" at the University of Kassel and University of Hamburg
01/2022 – 12/2023: Research Associate in the BMBF project H2POLITICS at the University of Hamburg
09/2020 – 03/2023: Research Associate in the BMBF research group GLOCALPOWER at the University of Hamburg
2017 – 2020: Research Associate and Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate Program "Ecologies of Social Cohesion" at the University of Kassel
2025: The German scramble for green hydrogen in Namibia: Colonial legacies revisited? Political Geography, 118, doi: doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103293 (with Johanna Tunn, Franziska Müller, Jesko Hennig, Jenny Simon)
2024: Green hydrogen transitions deepen socioecological risks and extractivist patterns: evidence from 28 prospective exporting countries in the Global South. Energy Research & Social Science. 117, 10.1016/j.erss.2024.103731 (with Johanna Tunn, Franziska Müller, Jenny Simon, Jesko Hennig, Imeh Ituen, Nina Glatzer)
2024: Postfossile Transformation? Umkämpfte Dekarbonisierung, fossile Kontinuitäten und fortgesetzter Extraktivismus in der globalen Wasserstoffökonomie. PROKLA - Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft, 54(216): 371-390. doi: 10.32387/prokla.v54i216.2139 (with Jenny Simon, Anne Tittor)
2024: Transition Conflicts: A Gramscian Political Ecology Perspective on the Contested Nature of Sustainability Transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transition, 50. doi: 10.1016/j.eist.2024.100812
2023: Between green extractivism and energy justice: competing strategies in South Africa’s hydrogen transition in the context of climate crisis. Review of African Political Economy, 50(177-178): 302-321. doi: 10.1080/03056244.2023.2260206 (with Jenny Simon, Johanna Tunn, Jesko Hennig)
2023: Zwischen Konfrontation und Kooperation: Der Transformationskonflikt Arbeit versus Klima in der südafrikanischen Energiewende. PROKLA - Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft 53(210): 99-115. doi: 10.32387/prokla.v53i210.2030
2022: Kämpfe für Klimagerechtigkeit. In: Daniela Gottschlich, Sarah Hackfort, Tobias Schmitt und Uta von Winterfeld (Eds.). Handbuch Politische Ökologie. Theorien, Konflikte, Begriffe, Methoden. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 173-182. (Link)
2022: Hydrogen justice. Environmental Research Letters 17: 115006. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac991a (with Franziska Müller und Johanna Tunn)
2022: Shipping the sunshine? A critical research agenda on the global hydrogen transition. GAIA 31(2): 72-76. doi: 10.14512/gaia.31.2.2 (together with Johanna Tunn)
2022: Agents of transition or defenders of the status quo? Trade union strategies in green transitions. Journal of Industrial Relations 64(4): 499-521. doi: 10.1177/00221856211051794
2021: Jobs vs. climate justice? Contentious narratives of labor and climate movements in the coal transition in Germany. Environmental Politics 30(7): 1135-1154. doi: 10.1080/09644016.2021.1892979
Further publications can be found here.
Industrial Workers in Transition: Decarbonization as a Contested Ecological Modernization of Production Regimes
The research project funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation at HWR Berlin analyzes the industrial workers play in corporate decarbonization processes. It focuses on the extent to which and in what form industrial workers engage with the decarbonization discourse and incorporate their own justice concerns. The study particularly examines two paradigmatic sectors: the automotive industry and the steel industry.
Link: https://www.hwr-berlin.de/aktuelles/neuigkeit/detail/6007-industriebeschaeftigte-in-der-transformation
H2POLITICS
The BMBF research project H2POLITICS analyzed the developmental, socio-ecological, technical, and economic risks associated with Germany's import-oriented National Hydrogen Strategy in countries of the Global South.
Link: https://www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de/en/fachbereich-sowi/professuren/mueller/forschung/h2politics.html
GLOCALPOWER
The BMBF junior research group GLOCALPOWER examined governance and the political economy of African energy transition processes with case studies in Ghana, Zambia, and South Africa.
Link: https://www.uni-kassel.de/fb05/en/fachgruppen-und-institute/politikwissenschaft/fachgebiete/globalisierung-und-politik/bmbf-research-group-glocalpower
PhD project
„No Jobs on a Dead Planet: Conflicts and cooperation between labor and climate movements in coal transitions in Germany and South Africa“