Morocco’s dash to rebrand itself as a green hydrogen powerhouse has pushed the energy transition straight into one of the world’s last unresolved colonial territories. Across the length of Western Sahara from El Aaiun (Laayoune) to Dakhla, vast tracts of land are being carved up for gigawatt-scale solar and wind farms, electrolyzers, and export terminals.
Under Rabat’s “Morocco Offer,” launched in March 2024, up to one million hectares have been earmarked for hydrogen production. Much of the most valuable coastal land lies squarely inside Western Sahara, a territory Morocco has occupied since 1975 and which remains on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.
In June 2025, Morocco’s Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development confirmed that seven green hydrogen projects have been selected, with a total investment of approximately $32.8 billion. These projects are part of the so-called “Morocco Offer” strategy, and most of them would be in occupied Western Sahara.
The projects would aim to produce around 20 gigawatts of renewable energy, roughly half of which will feed electrolyzers to generate up to 8 million tonnes of hydrogen derivatives such as ammonia, synthetic fuels, and low-carbon or “green” steel. These projects are expected to consume around 63 million cubic meters of water every year. Developers see opportunity. But this is not simply about decarbonization; it is about colonial entrenchment.
From the perspective of international law, Western Sahara’s status has not changed. Rebranding it as Morocco’s “southern provinces” does not erase the Sahrawi people’s inalienable right to self-determination. The European Court of Justice has repeatedly ruled that EU-Morocco trade or fisheries agreements cannot legally apply to Western Sahara without the consent of its people. The same logic extends to hydrogen: any project exploiting the land or resources of the territory without that consent violates international law.
By tying European, Gulf, American, and Asian capital to supply chains rooted in occupied land, the energy transition risks normalizing and financially hard-wiring the occupation. France, for example, has signaled its readiness to finance a three-gigawatt power link toward Dakhla, blurring the line between clean-energy diplomacy and conflict management through investment.
Among the most grandiose schemes is Dahamco, a Morocco-UAE joint enterprise planning a US$25 billion hydrogen-ammonia complex in Dakhla. It aims to produce one million tonnes of ammonia annually by 2031 for export to Europe’s industrial heartlands. Each port, cable, and pipeline built in this occupied land becomes political ballast for Morocco’s claim of sovereignty.
Civil society has a term for this phenomenon: green colonialism—the use of climate-friendly language to cement control and extract value from colonized spaces. Rabat’s invitation has drawn a roll call of international partners: Spain’s Acciona, the UAE’s TAQA, and Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power, among them. In March 2025, six consortia were selected to develop projects across three so-called “southern regions.” Two of those—Laâyoune-Sakia El Hamra and Dakhla-Oued Eddahab—lie almost entirely within occupied Western Sahara. By some accounts, three-quarters of all the land on offer sits south of the internationally recognized border.
The Western Sahara landscape is not a blank slate for clean-energy dreams. It is one of the most heavily mined regions on Earth, split by a 2,700-kilometer berm and scarred by decades of conflict. New industrial corridors, security zones, and fenced-off wind fields risk cutting off pastoral routes, displacing communities, and locking in patterns of land confiscation under the guise of climate action.
Hydrogen production also requires vast quantities of water. Morocco’s own plans rely heavily on desalination, which creates hypersaline brine discharge that damages marine ecosystems when mismanaged. Dakhla’s coastline, an internationally significant biodiversity zone hosting flamingos, monk seals, and fragile wetlands, is already under ecological stress. Without transparent environmental assessments and strict no-go zones, large-scale hydrogen development could devastate its ecosystems.
Adding to the strain, Morocco is promoting a 500-megawatt “green-powered” data center in Dakhla—again, in occupied territory. This project alone could consume up to 1.8 billion liters of water annually for cooling. In a desert landscape reliant on fossil aquifers, that is not green innovation; it is ecological recklessness.
The water resources of the Sahrawi people in their occupied lands are being drained to fuel industries and illegal investment projects whose economic benefits exclude them entirely.
These so-called renewable energy developments undermine Sahrawi self-determination and further complicate the resolution of the question of Western Sahara.
The implications are enormous. Planned energy exports could make European and West African markets partially dependent on power generated in the occupied territory, creating new forms of external dependency on energy sourced from Western Sahara. The Moroccan regime also uses the promise of renewable energy to enhance its “soft power,” persuading or pressuring other states to back its colonial project.
These projects thus serve both political and economic goals: to entrench Morocco’s control and to bind foreign investors, especially from the Gulf states, Europe, and Asia, into the ongoing exploitation of the territory. They extend a familiar pattern: phosphate from Bou Craa, fish from coastal waters, agricultural exports from Dakhla’s irrigated plains, and now, hydrogen. Each step deepens the economic and political incorporation of an occupied land into Morocco’s domestic and export markets.
From a legal standpoint, any economic activity in Western Sahara without the consent of the Sahrawi people violates international law and multiple rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Each new hydrogen cable, desalination plant, and export terminal that ignores these principles exports legal and moral risk along with electrons.
Morocco’s hydrogen strategy is opportunistic at its core. The country lacks fossil fuels but occupies land rich in sun and wind—and Europe is desperate for green molecules. Western Sahara, in this vision, becomes “bankable.” But bankable does not mean lawful or just. “Green” development in occupied territory undermines the very principles of justice and sovereignty that climate action is supposed to advance.
The result is a new dependency: a global energy transition built on contested land and geopolitical silence. This would merely trade fossil-fuel dependency for complicity in occupation. For investors and governments, the principle is clear: no Sahrawi consent through their legitimate representative, the Frente Polisario, means no lawful trade. Developers and financiers who proceed without it invite lawsuits, reputational damage, and political fallout.
Hydrogen in Western Sahara is not a neutral climate fix, it is a high-stakes geopolitical wager. By tying the energy transition to an unresolved occupation, governments and corporations risk laundering injustice through the language of sustainability.
If the world truly seeks a clean energy future, it cannot be built on dispossession. The first and most basic requirement for any project in Western Sahara remains what international law already demands: the free and genuine consent of the Sahrawi people.
Until that happens, Sahrawis and their allies have one clear course of action, to challenge, litigate, and expose every deal that treats Western Sahara as though it were Morocco. The energy transition can move fast, but never faster than justice.
