Could future COP talks help to de-junk near-earth space?

Abstract

Space debris has reached alarming proportions and is growing at a frightening pace, because of the expanding number of satellites circulating in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), designed to increase global Internet coverage and provide earth observation data. LEO satellites are now being launched in mega-constellations, including by Elon Musk's company SpaceX. It is time to completely overhaul the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which was not designed to deal with current problems. The COP forum should therefore include the near-earth environment within its concept of the earth's climate, enabling the UN to acknowledge, as a collective, the growing menace of human-made debris in near-earth space, and, in partnership with the UN-Outer Space Affairs Office (UN-OOSA), call for a new declaration on LEO.