A programme through which more than 80 US embassies around the world monitored local air quality has been halted as a cost cutting measure by the US State Department.
While the significance of the monitoring undertaken at these locations is not immediately apparently, it has been credited with having a positive impact on global air quality.
Because the original intention of monitoring air quality at embassies and consulates around the world was to protect their staff, the monitoring tended to take place in areas with traditionally poor air quality and a lack of local monitoring. As such the data published by the embassies was of huge interest to the local population.
The impact of the data released by the US Embassy in Beijing is regularly cited as having embarrassed the Chinese authorities into taking action on air pollution in the country.
When their monitor was installed in 2008, the Beijing embassy began tweeting real-time air quality information every hour.
Research published in 2022 found that: ‘large-scale global monitoring intervention by the US Department of State lowered pollution in low- and middle-income countries, likely through the channel of increased salience of air pollution among the local population. The intervention led to substantial health benefits enjoyed by the over 300 million people living in cities home to a US Embassy monitor as of 2019.’
By the time of that report, more than 80 other US embassies or consulates in 38 countries were also monitoring local air quality and making their findings public.
The embassies’ finding were also of use to scientists around the world. In November last year, we reported on how a team in Pittsburgh found a way to use particle deposits collected by the embassies to determine which parts of the black carbon collected were coming from fossil fuels as opposed to biomass burning or wood smoke.
Making the announcement yesterday, the State Department said that for now, the air monitors would continue to operate but the data would not be processed or shared.
A State Department spokesperson said: ‘The current budget climate requires us to make difficult cuts and, unfortunately, we cannot continue to publish this data.’