PlanetStewards Leads the Earth-Space Governance Taskforce at the Earth System Governance Conference in Bath
12 October 2026
The Taskforce on Earth-Space Governance organized four panels throughout the 2026 Earth System Governance conference in Bath, England. We are happy to share the following overview of the many rich presentations this produced.
In the first panel, “Orbital Governance in the Emerging Earth-Space Systems Era,” four presentations explored governance challenges for Earth’s orbit in the face of multiplying (particularly commercial) activities there. Blake Harvey exposed the limits of experts’ efforts to protect the sky from light pollution caused by the rapid rise in low Earth orbit satellites. Besa Shahini argued that the current governance of Earth’s orbit translates to private actors benefiting while outsourcing costs to others such as states, the global community forced to manage orbital congestion and pollution, and future generations who will inherit higher risk. Feja Lesniewska highlighted the disconnect between the overlapping character of Earth-Space system risks and the siloed way in which legal regimes governing planetary infrastructures operate. In response to this observation, she proposed an alternative planetary legal systems architecture approach that conceptualizes all critical infrastructures as part of an integrated socio-ecological-technical system across multiple governance levels within planetary boundaries. Finally, Martin Calvet investigated the potential for the Rights of Nature to be applied as a governance approach for protecting dark and quiet skies.
The next panel moved beyond the orbit to discuss the “Moon’s Future: Lunar Governance for Earth-Space Sustainability,” in light of growing geopolitical and economic interest in the Moon from mining it to establishing permanent human settlements there. Erin Jones zoomed in on the US-led Artemis Accords to demonstrate how lunar governance reflects corporate interests amid US-China geopolitical competition. Blake Harvey emphasized how governance approaches focused on preserving a handful of specific lunar sites enable industrial and capitalist futures for the Moon. Offering a path forward, Florian Rabitz drew on lessons from international environmental law to unpack the potential for designing and implementing a moratorium on lunar industrialization.
Building on the issues raised in the first two panels, the third panel, “Governing Cascading Risks across Earth-Space Systems: The Planet, the Moon, the Astromine and Critical Infrastructure” traced how fragmented governance regimes across terrestrial and celestial domains produce cascading risks to planetary resilience and justice. Miles Timpe demonstrated how lunar helium-3 mining would likely lead to contestation and overextraction in regions with high He-3 abundance. Michael Picard showed how lunar waste dumping violates international law and pointed to possible paths forward to recast the Moon as a legal subject to prevent its further desecration. Eswar Theagarajan explored the legality of astromining (extraction from celestial bodies), with a focus on the ambiguous legal character of private space companies as both profit-seeking actors and “envoys of mankind” with state authorization and responsibility. In a concrete example of this governance gap around private spacefaring actors, Erin Jones focused on state responses to Starlink’s use in the Ukraine war to illustrate how the privatization of space-based infrastructure can generate international distrust, strategic decoupling, and securitization.
The fourth and final session, “Space-Based Solar Radiation Modification: New Earth-Space Governance Challenges?” was arranged as a roundtable with Xiao-Shan Yap and Florian Rabitz as chairs, joined by Aarti Gupta, Sean Low, and Miles Timpe. Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) techniques, such as space-based mirrors to redirect sunlight, have been proposed as solutions to global warming instead of undertaking the political economic overhaul necessary for planetary security and justice. The roundtable explored the governance implications of such proposals. The panelists seemed to generally agree that SRM would open up a host of new risks to the Earth-Space system, without addressing the core capitalist causes of planetary destruction. However, many open questions remain, including where the scientific community draws the line (e.g. are certain types of SRM acceptable while others are not?).
After a week of stimulating and sobering conversations, the Taskforce on Earth-Space Governance met on the final day of the conference to share updates, make plans, and just enjoy seeing each other in person. If you would like to join the Taskforce, please feel free to send a message to e.o.jones@uu.nl.