Sino Sharipov’s house (which asked not to use its real name) is located at the top of a hill on the northeast side of Dushanbe, in Tajikistan, overlooking the city’s coal cement plant and the coal thermal power station. From the point of view of his house, Sharipipo can clearly see the thick layer of Smog which covers Dushanbe most of the time.
“In very bad days, we can barely see the city of our house because it becomes so dusty and gray,” Sharipov told the diplomat.
Aside from the eye test, Sharipov sometimes relies on the American Embassy of Dushanbe Air Quality Station (AQI) when they decide if his children should stay inside and avoid breathing in dirty air in the city.
THE American embassy in Dushanbe is currently one of the only two institutional and one of the five overall surveillance stations of independent air quality in the capital of Tajikistan. The air quality of the United States’s air quality account presents itself on the city’s air quality daily and is followed by more than 13,000 people.
They are all about to lose this important and independent source of information.
The US State Department recently announcement The suspension of its global air quality monitoring program due to “budgetary constraints” as part of President Donald Trump’s initiative to reduce the size of the United States government. Since 2008, 80 American embassies and consulates around the world have collected and have publicly published on local air quality. The program, which began as an effort to monitor limited air but transformational in China, has developed the under security of State John Kerry to the rest of the world. It has contributed considerably to research on air quality, has resulted in air quality improvements and has often been the only reliable data on air quality in many places, including in Central Asia.
In recent years, air quality in Central Asia deteriorated Significantly due to the rapid urbanization of the region, the lack of application of the environmental law and the radical redevelopment of its capitals.
This is particularly true for Dushanbe, Tadjikistan, which houses the production of cement of the country and many waste and coal sites. Despite the fact that more than 95% of the country’s electricity comes from the hydroelectricity, electricity and heating of Dushanbe are produced by a charcoal thermal power plant funded by China which contributes considerably to air quality problems when it operates in autumn and winter. Vehicle emissions have doubled in the past decade and now exceed half a million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year.
The 2024 IQAir report, a Swiss company that follows global air quality, including through the stations it provides to American embassies around the world, class The air quality of Tajikistan as the sixth worst in the world. The concentration of fine particles, or PM2.5, in Tajikistan, was nine times higher in 2024 than the standard of the World Health Organization (WHO). PM2.5One of the smallest but most dangerous pollutants that stems from the combustion of fossil fuels, dust storms and forest fires, is linked to the largest proportion of health complications linked to air pollution in the world. WHO estimates This air pollution causes at least 7 million premature deaths per year in the world.
Despite The commitment of the TAJIK government To reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the country from 30 to 40% by 2030, compared to the levels of 1990, the situation is ready to get worse. National tadjikistan development strategy strongly emphasizes the development of industry. Cement production will increase and tadjikistan intended to produce 10 million tonnes of coal by 2030 in 2016. The government continues to accommodate investments in mining, fossil fuels and construction, which all contribute to air pollution. The compulsory inspection of tadjikistan pollution of vehicles was deemed ineffective by examining the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, and Electric vehicles In Dushanbe, count on electricity that the city produces by burning charcoal.
The atmospheric pollution data of the TAJIK government is considered to be unreliable by many inhabitants.
“Authorities have incentives to minimize the way in which poor air pollution has obtained in Dushanbe,” an environmental activist based in Dushanbe told the fear of repercussions to the diplomat. The activist described the government’s commitment to reduce air pollution “a cunning for foreign donors” who does not align with “all that the government does and built”.
“We need independent parties that could check the government’s data and keep the officials responsible for the objective [of reducing pollution]They said.
This responsibility now seems a little less feasible with the suspension of the American air quality monitoring program in Tajikistan and in the world.