Planetary Health Research Digest
Authors: Sam Hinsley
Journal: The Lancet Planetary Health (2020)

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) aims to stabilise the worldwide monetary system, and by doing so promote economic growth and reduce global poverty. To do so, the IMF provides loans to countries experiencing economic difficulties. However, the conditions attached to these loans—particularly those related to economic liberalisation through structural adjustment—have been criticised for their lack of focus on health equity. To test whether participation in IMF loan programmes affected health equity, Timon Forster (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, Germany) and co-authors analysed IMF-mandated policy reforms in 137 developing countries from 1980 to 2014. While participation in an IMF loan programme did not in itself significantly affect health-care access or neonatal mortality (the chosen metrics of health equity), both indicators were adversely affected by the number of policy reforms included as conditions for these loans. In particular, reforms affecting labour markets were found to be driving these effects. If the IMF is to achieve its stated goals of reducing poverty, the authors conclude, it will need to make health equity central to future programmes, not just efficiency. Nature-based solutions are an increasingly common concept in discussions around climate change adaptation and mitigation, especially in urban environments. While most research on nature-based solutions has focused on defining them or refining their implementation, less attention has been paid to the political assumptions underlying their use and popularity. In their analysis, Panagiota Kotsila (Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Spain) and co-authors discuss the role of nature-based solutions in the neoliberalisation of nature, using two case studies from Barcelona to illustrate the differences in how such projects can play out. The first case, the establishment of a green corridor on the Passeig de Sant Joan, is used as an illustration of a project in which urban nature ends up being used for mainly economic benefit, with the chosen design of the greenspace being one that largely favoured café and bar owners in the area, rather than wildlife or communal social space. The second case, community gardens in Espai Germanetes, started from a similar economic motivation, with nature being used to prevent property degradation during a period of economic hardship. Despite this, the project transcended these goals when local community members successfully fought for the permanent establishment of their gardens, negating the original use of nature to protect future property investment. As the authors show, nature-based solutions are not necessarily apolitical and their implementation deserves study to answer whether they are delivering on their promise of true sustainability. Permafrost soils contain more than half of the total soil carbon in the world. Warming in permafrost zones and subsequent decomposition of this soil carbon has the potential to release a substantial amount of carbon into the atmosphere. Existing models have estimated the potential carbon release from the slow thawing of these permafrost zones, but sizable areas of these zones are also at risk for abrupt thawing. Merritt Turetsky (Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, USA) and co-authors synthesise the existing evidence and develop models to estimate abrupt thawing in their analyses of permafrost carbon release. Under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8·5 warming, the climate impacts of emissions from the 2·5 million km2 at risk of abrupt thawing were similar in magnitude to those from the wider 18 million km2 permafrost zone, at around 600 Tg CO2 equivalent per year from 2000–2100. Under RCP 4·5 warming, vegetation growth in thawed areas has been estimated to result in net ecosystem carbon uptake; however, when the authors factored abrupt thawing into their model, the additional emissions outweighed the carbon sink effects. Turetsky and colleagues argue that by not accounting for abrupt thawing, previous models have substantially underestimated the potential carbon emissions from thawing permafrost. Responses at the policy level are crucial for addressing major challenges such as the global obesity epidemic or climate change, and public support is essential to making sure that these policies are implemented effectively. Although communicating the effectiveness of a given policy is a logical way to increase public support for it, there is concern that this might not be the case in a “post-truth” world of echo chambers and political polarisation. On the basis of this uncertainty, James Reynolds (University of Cambridge, UK) and co-authors conducted a systematic review with meta-analysis of studies in which evidence of effectiveness or ineffectiveness was presented to members of the public for specific policies to investigate whether support for these policies then changed. Overall, support for a policy increased where participants were provided with evidence of effectiveness, and decreased with evidence of ineffectiveness or harm, with changes equivalent to an increase from 50% to 54% or a decrease from 50% to 44%, respectively. The findings suggest that aggregate policy support can move in the direction of the evidence provided for the public, highlighting the importance for effective communication in evidence-based policy making.