but also we could rely on saudi arabia's infinite sunny desert to produce h2 in sustainable quantites.

Pretty much no country wants green energy to be a repeat of fossil fuels, where a few countries monopolize the energy production, so that'd never work. Nuclear could be an answer though, if countries stopped being paranoid about it and actually invested in new nuclear tech.

if solar panels could become more efficient that also would be nice.

I wish, but it'll probably be a while, short of some kind of massive breakthrough, and definitely doesn't completely justify the losses in hydrogen electrolysis.

also because batteries would require african kids to mine for ur cathode (cobalt) and argentinian kids to mine for the anode (lithium). maybe solar panels are less impactful ?

Yeah, we really need to get away from lithium-ion batteries, especially because of the limited geography of some of its components and the environmental impacts of mining them. There's been some promising battery tech being researched, but no clear signs for what's going to pan out or not yet. On the bright side, improved lithium extraction methods are in the pipeline, which could reduce the geological and environmental impacts of it enough to allow other countries to feel comfortable tapping their deposits, like the US.