The government department’s air quality program eventually became an example of a smart, effective diplomacy that increased the US soft power while bringing about changes in the real world. “I’ve never seen an US government initiative have such an immediate, dramatic impact in a country,” Gary Locke, a former US Ambassador to China, told the Washington Post in 2013. The project was so successful that it appeared on the National Museum of American Diplomacy website.

Before it was suddenly killed, officials from the State Department, researchers and the public were able to have the international air quality data collected from the US embassies on Airnow, a database maintained by the EPA, as well as on Zephair, an app designed by the State Department to help US diplomats abroad. The former website is not available; The app showed that at least half a dozen ambassades stopped reporting regular data in mid -Tuesday before the feature was completely disabled on Wednesday, according to Wired tests.

Westernvelt, which describes the dosair as a basis of international air quality work, “says he has previously received grants from the State Department to expand the program in Africa. He says he became concerned about fate when he learned last week that his grants were terminated with thousands of others at the State Department and the US Agency for International Development.

Diplomatic victory

At the end of 2011, the air monitoring program had its great moment of public recognition in China. Pollution became so bad in Beijing that the city had to close its airport. The bone of the State Department again blew “crazy bad” lectures on Twitter, but the official Chinese government figures said the sky was just “slightly polluted”.

However, the Chinese public decided to trust the US embassy number. Many people expressed their disappointment on social media and forced the government to take action to clean up the air. It has become “an environmental waiver like the London Miss,” the former US diplomat says. In a turn that is almost incomprehensible today, the Chinese government has officially adopted the US State Department’s method of reporting air quality. It also made significant efforts to clean up air pollution and cooperate with the EPA on climate and environmental issues.

The Dosair program was also welcomed in many other countries, especially those who did not have an existing infrastructure to collect air quality data, Westervelt says. In some cases, local governments used high quality data collected at the US embassies to calibrate lectures at their own lower cost air monitors.

For these countries, ending the support for the air quality monitoring program can hinder their progress on the air, says Westervelt. “You can’t really soften the problem with air pollution unless you have quantitative evidence,” he explains. “Losing it is a fairly big blow.”

Clear economic winner

Over the past month, the Trump administration has reduced funding and staff across the federal government as part of a cost-saving initiative led by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But the air quality monitoring program is not very expensive for the US State Department to maintain. Westervelt estimates that it only costs tens of thousands of dollars a year because most of the monitoring equipment has already been purchased, and the most important expenses are related to maintenance.

The program showed how relatively low-cost information technologies can be used to encourage considerable air pollution reduction, says Akshaya Jha, an assistant professor of economics and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University who co-authored the 2022 study. When a US embassy began to publish the lectures in a city, he says, it often raised the public awareness of pollution and put the host country under pressure to take action to clean up the air. JHA found that local Google was looking for the term “air quality”, gradually increased after monitors were installed. Air pollution levels, estimated by satellite measurements, also dropped.

In the long run, JHA’s research also found that the program actually saves money for the State Department, which is needed to pay diplomats extra compensation for the living in dangerous environments. “Our estimates indicate that the monitors save the median ambassade about $ 34,000 a year in these kinds of hardship payments,” says Jha.

Even outside the hardships, creating a world where fewer people die from air pollution diseases would reduce the need for things like expensive medical treatments. “As for the benefits of this program, relative to its cost, it’s a clear winner,” says Jha.