US Halts Air Pollution Program Seen Helping Boost Global Health

(Bloomberg) — A US program that provided global air quality data from sensors at more than 80 embassies and consulates has been halted on budget grounds, adding to curbs as President Donald Trump’s administration limits funding for environmental and climate work overseas.

Live data will no longer be transmitted by diplomatic posts to be uploaded to a web portal and mobile app as of Tuesday, the State Department said in an emailed statement.

“The current budget climate requires us to make difficult cuts and unfortunately, we cannot continue to publish this data,” the department said in its statement. The decision was reported earlier by the New York Times.

The State Department first began collecting and publishing air quality data from its embassy in Beijing in 2008 and expanded the program to cover dozens of locations where information had previously been difficult to access. A 2022 academic study credited the work with helping to deliver improved health outcomes in cities where monitoring took place.

Hundreds of employees at the top US agency overseeing weather prediction and climate research were fired last week as Trump overhauls policies and funding, while key US climate diplomats have faced restrictions in working on the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, the major global assessment on planetary warming.  

A decision ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics to publish hourly data on air quality in China’s capital prompted initial protests from local officials. However, authorities ultimately launched a major campaign in 2013 to battle the nation’s worsening smog.

The US program “encouraged the Chinese government to adopt a more transparent approach” to environmental data and — at least indirectly — helped accelerate the country’s air quality improvements, according to Suehyun Jung, who wrote a 2022 paper on the impact and is an associate professor at Kongju National University.

“It was a policy that genuinely benefited the Chinese people — including foreign residents — while also enhancing the credibility and image of the United States,” said Jung, who served as a second secretary at South Korea’s embassy in Beijing from 2010 to 2013.

Air quality monitors at US missions will continue operating “for the time being” and historical information will remain available, the State Department said. “However, they will not be sending live data if/until funding for the underlying network is resolved,” the department said.

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