UNIDIR 2018 Space Security Conference - “Space Security: The Next Chapter”

Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

A warm welcome to the Palais des Nations!

Let me begin by thanking the organizers - the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, the Secure World Foundation and The Simons Foundation Canada, as well as the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation for their support.

Thank you as well for again assembling such a distinguished cast of speakers from such diverse geographical and professional backgrounds. This is exactly the kind of interdisciplinary composition and outlook that we need to bring together.

In light of the impressive technical expertise in this room, with which I can certainly not compete, I will limit my remarks to the political frame of why your discussion is so critical to virtually every aspect of our professional success as much as to our everyday life and personal well-being.

Just ponder for a moment how life in the early 21st century would look like if the sky above us was empty.

Life without satellites would not just mean that we would once again get hopelessly lost as we try to travel from A to B.

Much more consequentially, stock markets would stop working; global business would grind to a halt; farmers would lack the data to know when to plant and when to harvest, disrupting the world’s food supply; the Internet as indeed any network controlled by computers would break down; rescue workers would struggle to effectively respond to disasters on time; traffic lights in major cities across the world would default to red.

The disastrous list goes on but the point is clear: Satellites in space have become ubiquitous in our everyday life in ways we often fail to comprehend, much less appreciate. Satellites have improved our lives, strengthened our economy, and advanced our society.

To the casual observer, this progress is breath-taking.

To think that it was just a little over six decades ago that the world was stunned to see Sputnik orbit the Earth. To think that what began with this feat of Soviet engineering - a few pieces of metal with a transmitter and a battery strapped to the top of a missile - has since propelled immeasurable advances that have improved our health and well-being, from satellite navigation to water purification, from aerospace manufacturing to medical imaging.

The increasing complexity of life on earth - from the proliferation of global challenges to the diffusion of international power - is mirrored by the dazzling complexity just above us.

Today, there are around 1,738 operational satellites in orbit, owned by roughly 441 private companies and governments in 93 countries.

Today’s space environment is more contested, congested and competitive than ever before. Historically, space was to place what eternity is to time; today, space might quite literally be running out of space.

This has given rise to a number of challenges that we need to tackle with urgency if we want to safeguard the benefits that satellites have provided.

I just said “give rise to” but we should note that some of the challenges have in fact been with us for some time.

Almost sixty years ago, US President Eisenhower spoke before the United Nations to warn that the “emergence of the new world” - he meant space - confronted humanity with an “urgent choice”: “Will outer space”, he asked, “be preserved for peaceful use and developed for the benefit of all? Or will it become another focus for the arms race - and thus an area of dangerous and sterile competition?”
We have since agreed important treaties to govern the military and civilian uses of outer space, but the question in many respects remains unanswered.

In part, this is because the reality of what we are trying to govern is shifting rapidly even as we speak: Geopolitical changes, technological upheaval, the entry of new actors, notably from the private sector - all of this is altering the reality on the ground; or rather, in space.

Complacency is not an option - the Kessler syndrome, essentially a runaway chain reaction of collisions that create ever-increasing amounts of space debris, means that some orbital ranges may become too cluttered to be useful.

We have the technological know-how to find a solution to this and similar problems. The real problem is not a lack of capability; it’s a lack of trust. It’s a lack of political will.

This is the paradox of space: On the one hand, it is the place of the future. On the other hand, however, our negotiations to regulate it too often remain stuck in the mind-set of the past, in the zero-sum mentality.

Ever since the 193 Member States of the UN some two and half years ago agreed to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development - whose 17 Goals define the most ambitious development agenda in human history - we have been working hard to achieve a change of mind-set.
A mind-set of cooperation and partnership, not of competition and silos. A win-win mindset that is a must for successful and meaningful multilateralism.

A mind-set that recognizes that “you win-I lose” calculations are anachronistic remnants of Cold War-era international relations; that zero-sum games have no place in the world of today, and certainly of tomorrow.

The logic of the 2030 Agenda is simple and it is powerful: if the threats are existential, if power is dispersed and challenges are global and interlinked, then we really are all in this together, and no one wins unless everyone wins.

Reflecting on how critical satellites have become in achieving any one of the 17 Goals and reflecting on the stakes of inaction, we realize that we need to raise our ambition: Science demands it. The global economy needs it. And humanity depends on it.

At the beginning, I mentioned Sputnik - a name that in today’s memory immediately conjures up associations to the Cold War. But reading more about it, I was touched to find out the meaning of the word “Sputnik” in Russian.

While a “Putnik” is a traveller, “Sputnik” means “travelling companion”.

We are all “Sputniki” in our world.

Let’s remember that as we work for peace and dignity for all.

I wish you much success in your discussions.

Thank you.