By: Saia Patara IPC
UNOOSA was established in 1958 to foster peaceful outer space exploration and global cooperation. It is a UN-specialized agency supporting Member States, focusing on the development of space policies and laws. It promotes access to space technology for sustainable development. UNOOSA discusses environmental monitoring, disaster management, and socio-economic issues. It hopes to ensure inclusiveness towards space resources and promote innovation worldwide through partnerships and training. UNOOSA is working towards a more sustainable and prosperous future that can harness the full potential of outer space to benefit humanity.
Thousands of pieces of space debris are floating around in space threatening to cause harmful measures such as disrupting satellites catching the UNOOSA committee delegates’ attention. During this meeting, Mexico put forward a motion to clean up space debris which stemmed into a heated debate over how precisely it should be cleaned up.
While the delegation of Mexico “was absolutely horrified to hear about the A-SAP missile strikes that took place in space and whether your opinion is to outright ban space weaponry in A-SAP specifically or to just simply regulate them…. what Mexico wishes to speak about today is the cleanup of space.”
Responsibility is passed around as South Africa states that, “the cleaning up of space debris should be the responsibility of those who created it.”
Russia refutes this by saying, “More minority countries don't have resources to clean up space debris so it should fall onto the more wealthier countries.” This introduces a newly created bias towards the more wealthy countries, as Russia attempts to encourage sponsorship. To put it into perspective, naturally less wealthy countries will agree, not wanting to sacrifice their own resources.
Furthermore, China agrees with Mexico noting, “Cleanup is an absolute necessity, however, engaging in activities and scientific research should provide solutions to this.” It has been made evident that the majority of countries agree that space debris is a pressing issue, although finding a solution or more so, finding who will fund the solution, is the final struggle for closure.
Ukraine steps forward declaring, “We strongly encourage cleaning up space debris that's been left over by past generations.” stating that it “does not require a lot of resources to clean up all the leftovers in space from past space missions.” Even as Ukraine states this, each of the other countries continue to say that those who caused the space debris are the ones responsible for cleaning it. Considering that space debris occurred in the first place by these countries who caused it, it’s only expected that they’re ever so hesitant to adequately address their mistakes and fix what they started.
Even so, it seems as if no one is in opposition to cleaning space debris as yet another country agrees, Korea saying that they, “strongly recommended that cleaning up debris is crucial as represented by Ukraine. However, there are some developing countries that might not have that advanced technology to clean up, so Korea recommends that who created chaos is who should be cleaning it up.” Which rounds the discussion back to pointing fingers and dishing out blame rather than finding a solution. It seems as if the countries are more focused on finding a country to blame rather than finding a means to a solution.
The game of ‘passing the blame around’ is further extended when Saudi Arabia continues, “You should be a part of it because there are over 14 million satellites being affected,” directly addressing and countering Korea.
At the mention of satellites, the US states, “We're also hoping that in the future you use anti-satellite technology for defence and not as hostility. And we do agree that it would be our responsibility to clean up any direct cost.”
Iran attempts to agree with everyone remarking, “We agree with Ukraine that we should make clean up of space debris mandatory, we also agree with Korea that whoever makes the mess should clean it, also we agree with Russia that some countries do not have the wealth and resources to clean it.”
Switzerland mentions “We have nothing to do with this, so the countries that made the space debris should be responsible for their mess.” A solution cannot be found as long as the countries refuse to cooperate with each other and take ownership for who created this space debris debacle. Cooperation is unavoidable when deciding the fate of their common planet.
The United Kingdom voices, “We put a lot of funding into space so we don't think it’s necessary for others' mess to be cleaned up by us.” It then becomes apparent that the economy becomes the most pressing issue as to why each country is so hesitant to put forth solutions.
Italy rebuts this by saying, “It is essential to prevent hazardous accidents, we agree with Germany that countries should work together to clean up space debris.”
South Africa hopes to encourage a solution stating, “Saudi Arabia mentioned there are thousands and thousands of space debris, and South Africa believes that the limitations and conflicts in space should be restricted so we should not create more space debris.”
Australia expresses that time is not to be squandered commenting, “We believe that if it's a global effort we can solve it quicker if everyone helps.”
Closing this argument, Mexico states, “To elaborate on some points, that’ve clearly been lost in translation, first of all, it is the responsibility of the countries that committed the space debris in the first place to clean them up. But in addition, if you are willing to support countries in space cleanup that would be greatly appreciated...”
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