6 September 2024
The problem
Air pollution is a major health and climate problem in Mongolia. During winter, the air becomes thick with smog in most urban and rural centers, as many residents have to rely on coal-burning to stay warm. The consequences are dire: children suffer from acute respiratory diseases, schools are forced to close, and the capital city’s population faces one of the highest air pollution mortality rates in the world.
According to the World Health Organization, approximately 132 out of every 100,000 people in Mongolia die prematurely each year due to air pollution— a figure far above the global average of 92 per 100,000 people.
During the winter especially, you can see it, you can feel it, you breathe it, you smell it, you’re choked by it, your throat hurts.
Enkhuun Byambadorj, Co-Founder & Director of Operations, Breathe Mongolia – Clean Air Coalition
This crisis is exacerbated by a lack of accessible, transparent air quality data. The Mongolian government stations’ air quality raw data is behind a paywall and the public air quality index dashboard does not cover the whole country. This barrier to data makes it difficult for civil society and policymakers to understand the true scale of the problem and take action.
The solution
Breathe Mongolia – Clean Air Coalition is on a mission to tackle the country’s air quality crisis. The organisation was founded by Azjargal (Aza) Tsogtsaikhan, Uyanga Ganbaatar, Enkhuun Byambadorj and Oyungerel Munkhbat as a result of their family members getting sick.
Aza participated in the OpenAQ Community Ambassadors programme, supported by Clean Air Fund. The programme brought together passionate individuals from across the globe to raise awareness about air pollution, advocate for clean air, and promote the use of open data. Ambassadors act as vital links between their local communities and the OpenAQ platform, an open-source, open-access data platform that shows air quality data across the globe.
I worked with colleagues from India, Albania, South Africa and Kenya, and it was a really inspirational experience for me. I learned a lot about the challenges of other countries. We have very similar issues, and we don’t have to repeat the mistakes of others. We can just build upon the lessons from different countries.
Aza Tsogtsaikhan
Recognising that “we can’t manage what we can’t measure”, Breathe Mongolia is addressing Mongolia’s major data gaps by collecting and disseminating open-air quality data. The organisation utilised lower-cost air quality sensors in different parts of the country, particularly in areas where government data is either inaccessible or non-existent. These sensors collect real-time data, which Breathe Mongolia analyses and shares publicly, creating a comprehensive profile of air quality across different provinces.
As an environmental justice NGO, Breathe Mongolia – Clean Air Coalition fosters a community-driven approach to tackling air pollution. This data supports citizens, researchers, NGOs and policymakers. It also underpins the organisation’s advocacy work.
The impact
Breathe Mongolia – Clean Air Coalition has grown to an organisation of over 100 changemakers in 15 countries. From a group of volunteers to an organisation with full-time staff in Mongolia, they continue to educate communities and stakeholders on environmental justice and advocacy for clean air and a healthy climate.
Breathe Mongolia has gone on to build an interactive bilingual air quality monitoring and educational platform, as well as an air quality knowledge management platform. Recently, they successfully trained over 580 youth from 25 schools on sustainability, climate change and air pollution in collaboration with the United Nations Association of Mongolia (with funding from Australia Awards Mongolia). They also launched the Summer Climate and Clean Air Youth Fellowship, inspiring many participants to pursue careers in environmental engineering, science and urban planning. Their Environmental Journalism Fellowship is equipping 21 journalists to publish investigative reports on climate change and air quality.
The data collected through community-deployed sensors has been instrumental in driving advocacy. By providing hard evidence of the air quality crisis, Breathe Mongolia has been able to advocate more effectively for stricter air quality regulations and for greater transparency from the government. This data has also been used to highlight the disparities in air pollution exposure between different regions and communities, pushing for a more equitable approach to tackling the issue.
We’re building our capacity as an organisation to push for policy and systemic changes. We’re mobilizing the new governmental agencies, new parliament members and other nongovernmental stakeholders, so that we can really come together and cooperate.
Aza Tsogtsaikhan
Find out more about our global grants promoting the use of open air quality data.
