Satellites orbiting Earth provide essential services to humanity. They connect us via the internet, they help with mapping and GPS and they monitor our changing climate, among other things. But ‘space junk’ threatens our use of satellites. Decommissioned satellites or their dislocated parts may lead to a chain reaction where small pieces of debris tear apart large objects in a cascading event creating more and more debris.
Responsibility for space junk removal is an environmental problem similar in some ways to climate change - it’s a collective responsibility. And just as managing climate change is assisted by satellites, so managing satellite debris can be assisted by climate change.
Like climate change, the problem of space junk can only be tackled by international cooperation. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, was the first and most complex instrument of international law to address climate change and can provide some insights into how to manage space junk.
