 Pedro Sánchez has been once again elected Prime Minister of Spain. How did he manage to cobble together a coalition? A new report chronicles the impact of climate change on health. What are the factors that affect public health and health systems? And finally, air pollution in India's capital continues to worsen. Why are New Delhi's residents struggling? This is the Daily Debrief. These are your stories for the day. And before we go any further, if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button. Pedro Sánchez of the Spanish Socialist Party has been re-elected Prime Minister of Spain months after an election that did not give any party a majority. Sánchez managed to get together a coalition which included Basque and Catalan nationalists, a very controversial move which led to very violent protests by the right wing. What are the challenges before Sánchez and what will its agenda be? To know more, we have with us Anish. Anish, thank you so much for joining us. Elections were held in Spain in July and it's been many, many months and the negotiations took a long time clearly. And in fact, in these elections, Sánchez's party was not even the leading party. So could you maybe talk us through how this coalition itself happened? What was the kind of discussions involved? And how did finally Sánchez become the Prime Minister again? So yes, Prashant, what you've seen over the past four months are very intense negotiations between the PSOE and pretty much every major regional party that there is in the Congress right now who are more Republican or left inclined at this point in time. And we have seen a very different set of concessions given to each of these blocks, including Sumad, which was the junior ruling coalition partner in the former Sánchez government. Sumad pretty much secured a reduction in working hours, weekly working hours for workers in Spain. And apart from that, the most contentious definitely was the Amnesty Bill, which definitely sparked a massive protest by right wingers. Massive and also violent, let's add to that as well. There was an attempt to siege, lay siege on the PSOE headquarters and also attack certain other coalition partners as well. So we have seen that and this definitely came with very rigorous coalition talks that probably hasn't been seen in Spain in recent memory. And nevertheless, what we are looking right now is a set of promises, promises that will actually bring in more funding, more investments into the rural Spain, especially the more minority blocks like Galicia or Basque or even Catalonia in some, like one of the coalition partners did call for a couple of billion dollars in investments. So what we're looking at is going to be a more spread out investment for development, for any kind of new investment projects from the government. And that is definitely what has been clinched at this thing. But what we are also looking at is the prominence. Obviously they existed, the more nationalist or separatist kind of groups have already existed and have always been there in the parliament for a while now. But definitely none of them were able to influence government making to the extent that it has at the current moment. So definitely their prominence has risen, even though many of them lost seats, lost votes in the snap elections that was held in July. But many of them are now basically kingmakers and in this case, they will have a significant say in the coming government, especially towards policies to the minority regions that have been calling for independence of some sort over the past decades now. And Anish, of course, this has also led to violent protests by the right wing. So could you maybe also talk a bit about that? Yes, so it was not unexpected because definitely the right wing have always called for a more rigorous crackdown actually on those calling for a separate nation, especially those in the Catalonian region. And that is pretty much the reason why the amnesty bill for the protesters, especially the leaders who do identify as Republicans who want the monarchy to go, who want Catalonia to be an independent nation, is something that was the most contentious for them. And violent protests, as I pointed out, included trying to lay siege on the party headquarters of the PSOE and also other places, attempts to attack leaders of the left. And that clearly brings out a sort of ideological battle as well to the forefront that was not seen for a very long time in Spain. And this clearly shows that there is now going to be a more polarized Congress of deputies where the right wing will be more vocal and maybe even more assertive or even violent in some cases with the upcoming government that includes people whose it sees as enemies of the Spanish nation or whatever. But definitely what you're looking at is also a consolidation of the more Republican and left-wing groupings around Sanchez and that consolidation will have its own impact in the long run. So we have to wait and see how this new government is going to take shape, if you will have these new parties, these new coalition partners being part of the new government or if they're going to be there just for the supply vote and confidence vote and how they're going to influence government policies on a whole range of issues because this is probably the more left-wing and more Republican kind of government that Spain has seen in recent memory and definitely more left-wing than the previous Sanchez government. So definitely what we're looking at is going to be at least expectations of a progressive set of policies on major issues that are also facing Spain right now especially when it comes to migration or for that matter austerity that has been a major issue and obviously the cost of living crisis and how the government is going to deal with it in the coming years. Rani, thank you so much for the analysis. We'll see how this government pans out considering the various pulls and pushes that are going to definitely be there. As you said, very different kinds of agenda as well. A challenge for the Spanish socialists and the Sanchez on one hand which are always sort of tacked to the centre but also very interesting moment for the Spanish left in terms of whether they can actually capture more space after they kind of declined for a while in between. Thank you so much. The Eighth Annual Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change which was released on November 15th shows the impact of climate change on health and there are many. For instance, elderly people and infants are now experiencing twice as many heat waves per year than they would have had in 1986 to 2005. Similarly, the spread of infectious diseases is increasing. The report is called for climate-driven health action. To understand what this means, we go to Ana. Ana, thank you so much for joining us and we have talked about health systems and public health a lot on this show and definitely climate change likely to be one of those factors which will really accentuate the cracks already in these systems will really be an attack on public health on its own so to speak. So first of all could you sort of explain some of the major aspects of this report especially the kind of impact that climate change is likely to have on health crisis in general? I think that's one of the main points of the report actually is that you cannot pinpoint to one specific health outcome of the climate breakdown but the biggest problem is that they are so interlinked that at some point the effects are going to affect human health and planetary health of course in one way or another. So we're talking about impacts on food systems. We're talking about the impacts of deadly heat or on the impact of floods but also to increases in prevalence of infectious communicable diseases which we had not seen in certain parts of the world before or we have seen among a smaller number of people than we are seeing now and that we will be seeing over the next decades. I think that one of the points which the report makes a very big highlight of is the impact of heat waves, of extreme heat, of droughts on people all over the world so it starts with saying that because of various forms of heat waves and of droughts there are now almost 130 million people more experiencing food insecurity in over 100 countries in 2021 than there were in for example in the period between 1981 and 2010 if I'm not mistaken. So that's only the impact on food security which we know that has extensive health implications because it impacts children, it impacts older people. It means that more children do not have access to adequate quality and quantity of food that leads to the one hand to stunting, to the prevalence of underweight among children but we also know that it leads in a world where the commercial determinants of health are not well regulated, it can also lead to the increased consumption of food which is bad for health. So that's definitely one of the outcomes to look out for but then you know it also makes a point that we have to take into consideration that heat directly is causing more and more deaths so you know specifically if you look at a couple of categories of population categories which are especially vulnerable to the impacts of heat and that is older people so people over 65 years of age and then children under the age of one they're now experiencing among so essentially they're experiencing twice as many heat waves than they would have in the previous reporting periods so that's you know it's a big increase, it has the potential to damage health in a number of ways and then finally you know it's not only the direct impact on health but it's also impacting health through impacting the economic determinants of health because of the heat we know that many people especially those who work outside so for example the agriculture sector is especially vulnerable to this agricultural workers experience a loss of labor hours because they are not able to work or they are not able to work without compromising their health so that is an additional layer to what we're seeing here and then of course you know we can also talk a lot about what's happening with the infectious diseases because we have seen dengue outbreaks recently which is connected to how the climate change trends are going we are also seeing an increase well in the spread of bacteria that can cause the aerial disease and this is because of the rising temperature of sea temperature of sea which makes more and more coastlines adequate habitats for the development of these bacteria so essentially it's a combination of factors that we are looking at and it's impacting the global south more than it is impacting the global north although it has to be said that there are problems in the global north because of climate change as well right Anna that was the question I was going to come next which is that like climate change in general itself it's not an umbrella term the impacts are different on different parts of the world so I suspect I presume that the health impacts are also going to be in that sense very different so could you maybe also take us to that well yes and again you know it's something that we've been seeing for a long time and that climate activists and health activists have been pointing out that will be a problem all along and that the global south countries are more exposed to the impact of climate change than those in the global north and that again happens in many ways we know that you know we have seen very recently the effects of the droughts in parts of Africa we know that parts of Latin America are also experiencing widespread problems because of that and the issue is that it's not these countries who are actually responsible for what is happening and them being forced to shoulder the burden while not being offered any kind of retribution for what is happening is what's making it's what's making things worse essentially so but again I think it's worth mentioning that even when we talk about this unequal distribution of health burdens in the context of climate change we have to take into consideration how these different effects overlap so we start with a situation where already these countries do not have health systems which are comparable on on certain level we know that the health systems in Africa and Asia in Latin America have been weakened in different ways compared to those in the global north so you start from a position where it's already much more difficult for a health system to respond to the effects of climate change that we're seeing so how are health systems in West Africa going to cope with a rising number of people who are suffering from heat stroke or who do not have access to clean water or who have less and less access to nutritious food so this is something that really is highlighted in the report it's highlighted in the reactions of the WHO to this report and it's something that needs to be addressed in a broader scope than what we're talking about if only we're focusing on climate change right Anna thank you so much for that definitely an issue which in the coming years and coming decades will be very high on the agenda of activists and governments definitely need to take notice as well thank you for talking to us and finally India's capital New Delhi is struggling with air pollution the city's air quality index remained in the severe category what is worse is that the weather conditions are likely to perpetuate these issues in the coming days Delhi is not the only city facing this crisis though many Indian cities have been dealing with poor air quality in what has become an annual affair we go to Pragya Singh of Newsclick to understand some of these issues Pragya thank you so much for joining us pretty alarming visuals from New Delhi right now poor air quality people having difficulty breathing and this is not just today's situation it's been the same for many days now in fact it's almost an annual event this kind of a poor situation in the streets of Delhi and the skies and in many other Indian cities as well so maybe you could first take us through what's happening and what are the reasons for this poor air quality right Prashant it really is an annual feature you know one of our regular columnist the Raghunandan of the Delhi Science Forum has actually said it's a festival we should you know market like a festival I mean he's not actually trying to be funny what he's trying to say is that not only is the pollution very high but the kind of solutions that the various state governments and the center government are coming up with are not working so the sources of pollution is where the problems began it's actually traffic you know the traffic flying on the roads is the biggest source of pollution in most Indian cities in most parts of the country yet you know the focus seems to be on events that occur temporary events that occur from across the year so there'll be a festival or there will be crop burning which is a result of you know the farmers being in a rush to plant the next crop and you know not wanting to lose out on the sowing season so the focus is entirely on events that do cause pollution but are not the primary cause of what the scientific community would call baseline pollution the base pollution is very very high double or triple the accepted limits across the year so you have very high pollution and then you have certain events like festival where crackers are burst or you know the farm fires and then when the situation gets very bad is when the media steps in and talks about it the other sources of pollution of course are household waste and waste burning and construction dust and then finally road dust so depending on where the city is if you're like Delhi the capital then you're surrounded by areas which have all of these problems you move your industries out you move the you know the power generation sources based on diesel a little farther out but then the breeze will just blow them back in or you know you try stop cap measures which don't work which I think we can talk about too So Prage coming back to that point what are the kind of solutions that are coming up because I think that's very key like like you said this becomes subject of conversation this time around every year and then there's a flurry of experts coming in various bodies intervening sometimes even the courts but what are the kind of solutions being proposed in ideally what should be done Right Prashant so I had to actually list those out because they're so varied and sometimes a little fascinating actually the solutions as well as the so-called solutions so odd even which is supposed to be a way to cut the traffic on the roads to half it didn't work because the Supreme Court wanted to know well does it really work and the Supreme Court is not entirely wrong in asking this question because Just to clarify odd even is when vehicles are you know there's a separation right Yes odd even is when you are told that the registration plates which are even flying one day and then so on and so forth so that didn't work because the Supreme Court basically said does it work and you know they had a point there because there are so many exclusions to this plan introduced in Delhi and attempted by other cities that you know it was questionable how well it was working because of that then you have smog guns now you know even I cross over this you know the border of Delhi with the neighboring state to reach my house every day and there's a giant construction site with this one smog gun it's a pathetic site you need thousands of these and you know I don't think it's possible to install that many but a lot of money around the country is being spent on these kind of stop gap measures what is being done for controlling the pollution arising from the transport of goods and passengers and the transport and the vehicles which ordinary people use there's really no word on that the other thing is that this because it's a human cry so the governments I think feel pressured to take strict action strict action like you know last week one of the Indian provinces they actually arrested farmers they took hefty fines for taking for them for having burnt the crop residue the thing is that you know for the farmers it is a kind of a compulsion to burn their crop stubble until a solution that works is found but for passenger traffic you can have alternatives like public transport which solve this problem so you know a lot of the experts are sort of throwing up their hands in the air and saying why don't we work on those solutions everywhere across the country across the year you get reports of how public transport is not only not prioritized but deeper the number of buses is reducing the you know the metro construction seems to be sort of slowing down maybe it's got to do with the economy so those are the things which people are saying you need to focus on finally let's look at Delhi it moved some of the diesel powered power plants out but the pollution problem remained similarly in coastal cities like Mumbai you saw the similar levels of pollution people unable to breathe toxic fumes as you see in very landlocked landlocked areas like Delhi so obviously the solution need to be found so that the base level of pollution goes down and that isn't being done at all Right Pragya thank you so much for talking to us like you said it does seem like what we need throughout the year structural solutions which actually managed to mitigate the impact rather than you know last minute hand wringing and sometimes very misguided solutions as well thank you so much for explaining that that's all we have time for in this episode of DERiT Brief we'll be back tomorrow with another episode in the meanwhile visit our website peoplesdispatch.org watch our 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