State Dept Will Set Up More Air Monitoring Stations In Other Countries - Those Countries Not Happy
In 2008, American diplomats in Beijing quietly installed an electronic monitor outside the U.S. Embassy to test pollution levels in the Chinese capital’s famously sooty air. The results, posted daily on the Internet, were mainly intended for U.S citizens and visitors, but soon ordinary Chinese were logging in for reliable information about health threats in the air they breathed.
Chinese officials complained, but the daily reports from the embassy’s monitor added to the pressure that eventually led China to take dramatic steps to reduce smog. It worked so well, in fact, that the Obama administration has now decided on a major expansion — to U.S. diplomatic missions all around the world. In a joint announcement on Wednesday, Secretary of State John F. Kerry and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy unveiled plans to place air-quality monitors outside embassies in numerous foreign cities, starting with diplomatic posts in India and then moving to Vietnam, Mongolia and other countries. Again, the goal ostensibly is to keep American ex-pats and travelers informed about health threats. But Kerry acknowledged other benefits to providing local populations with reliable information about air quality.
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Chinese officials, who previously dismissed concerns over what they called excessive “fog” in the country’s largest cities, have been compelled by improved monitoring to taking dramatic steps to combat air pollution, which Beijing Mayor Wang Anshun recently described as a “life-or-death” situation. U.S. and Chinese officials announced a landmark agreement in November to lower air pollution in both countries to improve health and fight a major cause of climate change.
McCarthy said she was “not the most popular person” when she visited Beijing several years ago after the embassy’s air monitor was first installed. But eventually official attitudes began to change as local residents were able to call up air-quality data from the embassy on their cellphones, she said. The embassy’s air monitor, located in the heart of the capital, typically showed unhealthier air quality compared to official Chinese data.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/02/19/u-s-embassies-are-measuring-other-countries-air-quality-surprise-they-dont-like-it-much/
