The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), tasked with promoting international cooperation on the peaceful use of space, is forming a working group that will focus on the long-term sustainability of the use of outer space, Chief of UNOOSA Committee for Policy and Legal Affairs Niklas Hedman told Sputnik on the sidelines of the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi
ABU DHABI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th January, 2020) The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), tasked with promoting international cooperation on the peaceful use of space, is forming a working group that will focus on the long-term sustainability of the use of outer space, Chief of UNOOSA Committee for Policy and Legal Affairs Niklas Hedman told Sputnik on the sidelines of the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi.
"We have worked for 10 years to formalize guidelines on the long-term sustainability, we have 21 guidelines adopted last year. We are now forming a work group at this intergovernmental platform of Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space [COPUOS], where we would look into those guidelines, implement them, but also look if any other future guidelines are needed," Hedman said in an interview.
The UN official called on major spacefaring nations "to sit at the table and try to reach consensus" on the guidelines that should ensure safety, security, sustainability, and stability of space activities.
In recent years, more countries have joined space activities, with many of them launching their own satellites to the Earth's Orbit. The increase in space activities has sparked concerns about the militarization of space as well as the proliferation of space debris.
