Researchers: Apply U.N. Sustainability Goals for Oceans to Low Earth Orbit Effort
The U.N. should set a sustainable development goal around safeguarding low earth orbit (LEO), akin to the one it has for safeguarding the oceans, a group of researchers said. In a paper Thursday in the journal One Earth, the authors…
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said the marine and orbital environments share similar, growing problems of plastic waste and orbital debris, respectively. Meanwhile, both operate as "global commons," adding that policy approaches to try to tackle marine waste could also be models for handling space junk. They said voluntary agreements alone haven't been enough to address plastic pollution, and LEO needs a global treaty to scale up the voluntary agreements in place to safeguard that orbit. Any such treaty must include producer and user responsibilities for satellites and related debris. Authors of the paper include faculty from the University of Plymouth's International Marine Litter Research Unit, the University of Texas at Austin and the California Institute of Technology.