Globalizing the United States Air Quality Success Story

Air quality in the United States has improved dramatically in the past few decades. This success story is a result of government and industry response to the Clean Air Act, widespread monitoring of pollutants, improved understanding of photochemistry fundamentals, and economic decisions being made by industry, particularly the energy industry. Other developed countries have had their success stories as well. However, in much of the recently developed and developing world, the air quality is visually poor, usually poorly monitored, and unhealthy, causing millions of premature deaths annually. With current scientific understanding and technological know-how, the air quality could be improved in these countries, but there is an economic cost. In this talk, I will present some ideas on steps the United States could take to globalize the United States air quality success story.