Dialogue Earth is funded by a range of institutional supporters, including several major charitable foundations.

These include an interview with former US vice-president Al Gore[3] and Chinese economist Hu Angang.

Other contributors include Pan Yue who was named New Statesman Person of the Year 2007, and Ma Jun a leading Chinese environmentalist named by Time magazine as one of its 100 most important people in 2006.

[2] In 2011, it played a significant role in public discourse about air pollution in Beijing, after publishing a report comparing official air pollution figures with figures published by the US embassy in Beijing; the public discussions led to a change in policy by the Chinese environmental ministry.

[2] Journalism professor Zhong Zhang of the University of Sheffield sees Dialogue Earth as unusual among news sources in China, both in the independence of its reporting and in its public service goals, as opposed to partisan or commercial goals.