Thinking Out of the Box: A Green and Social Climate Fund Comment on "Politics, Power, Poverty and Global Health: Systems and Frames".

Kristof Decoster,Remco Van De Pas,Gorik Ooms,Rachel Hammonds

doi:10.15171/ijhpm.2016.154

Abstract

Solomon Benatar’s paper "Politics, Power, Poverty and Global Health: Systems and Frames" examines the inequitable state of global health challenging readers to extend the discourse on global health beyond conventional boundaries by addressing the interconnectedness of planetary life. Our response explores existing models of international cooperation, assessing how modifying them may achieve the twin goals of ensuring healthy people and planet. First, we address why the inequality reducing post World War II European welfare model, if implemented state-by-state, is unfit for reducing global inequality and respecting environmental boundaries. Second, we argue that to advance beyond the ‘Westphalian,’ human centric thinking integral to global inequality and climate change requires challenging the logic of global economic integration and exploring the politically infeasible. In conclusion, we propose social policy focused changes to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and a Green and Social Climate Fund, financed by new global greenhouse gas charges, both of which could advance human and planetary health. Recent global political developments may offer a small window of opportunity for out of the box proposals that could be advanced by concerted and united advocacy by global health activists, environmental activists, human rights activists, and trade unions.

Highlights

Solomon Benatar’s recent paper addressing “Politics, Power, Poverty and Global Health: Systems and Frames”[1] reminds us of the famous quote2: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” We agree with Benatar: as long as we seek solutions to address global health inequalities within the same systems and frames that produced them, we may be unable to find any
In terms of average income, many poorer countries are catching up, and investments and jobs are moving towards them – where the workforce is more skilled than it used to be, and still much cheaper – and away from the wealthier countries. This is why some argue that the European welfare state of the second half of the 20th Century cannot be expanded to other parts of the world.[7]. Atkinson rebuffs this objection against a return to the welfare state, but does not dismiss it altogether: “There is a fiscal problem, but it is a problem that is within our powers to solve, not one whose outcome is determined purely by external forces.”[4]. Increasing international cooperation could, in Atkinson’s opinion, create conditions for the establishment of the welfare state in all countries of the world: avoiding the ‘tax competition’ that erodes government revenue and the space for social policy by creating minimum taxation and social policy standards
They have seen the average income gap between them and wealthier countries widen, and that the gap is starting to decrease, the wealthier countries – or progressive voices in wealthier countries – want them to adopt policies that would reduce their attractiveness to investors? Discourses about the importance of solidarity and lesser inequality within countries, from the same countries that benefitted from rising inequality between countries and never seriously considered redistribution of income across state borders, sound shallow and hollow

Summary

Introduction

Three Problems So, one could argue that we do not have to think out of the box after all; we should restore the European welfare state policies of the 1950s to the 1970s, and expand them to the rest of the world. European welfare state policies worked, at least to some extent, within a context of increasing global economic integration, in which businesses located in European (and other high-income) countries enjoyed the benefit of a highly skilled workforce and cheap imported raw commodities.

Results

Conclusion