Trump's Trials - What cuts to global air monitoring could mean for the U.S. — and other countries

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

The U.S. State Department said it would stop publishing global air pollution data as part of attempts to shrink federal spending. The program set a worldwide standard for measuring air quality. NPR's Emily Feng reports. Support NPR and hear every episode sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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I mean, Martinez. The State Department says it will stop publishing global air pollution data. With more, here's NPR's Emily Fang. Clean air advocate Abed Omar first moved to Beijing in 2012. And I point out the sun or the space where the sun should be and you're not pointing to this yellow toxic sky. Covered by a choking smog. Erica Thomas was a State Department official at the time, stationed in the Chinese capital until 2014.

She helped run a network of high quality sensors measuring air pollutants and posted the information on social media daily. At first, China was furious. This environmental awakening had happened and everybody there, they may have been frustrated with us from a political standpoint, but they had to breathe the air. Their kids had to breathe the air.

They really cared. China ended up amending its own environmental air standards in response to public anger. And there were other knock-on effects. Omar went back to his home country Pakistan, and inspired by the Beijing embassy's monitoring, he began the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative. But he says the State Department data remained the gold standard.

The weight of the EPA is behind them in terms of the quality control of the data. In the last decade, the US expanded its air monitoring program from Beijing to more than 35 countries. And Andrea Lanoz, an associate professor of economics at Deakin University in Australia, found an average 10% drop in air pollutants in cities with State Department air monitors. They increased public awareness and thus pressure on local governments. With her co-researcher Akshaya Jha at Carnegie Mellon, she found this could save the State Department

nearly $1,500 per diplomat per year. U.S. diplomats are paid what's called a hardship differential for living in conditions that are worse than those in the United States. Because those conditions improved, we actually show that the hardship pay declined in these cities. Meaning she found the program paid for itself. Emily Feng, NPR News, Washington.

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