There are around 9,000 man-made objects orbiting the earth and being monitored for damage-causing potential.
However, of this only 6 percent comprise operational satellites while the rest are made up by the remains of satellites and material released during payload ejection, said Dr M Y S Prasad, ISRO.

The damage from this especially to developing nations was enormous, he said, and mooted a common but differentiated responsibility in maintaining space environment.  He was talking at a technical session at the 58th international astronautical congress here.

The debris could be identified for its origins and had been shown to be proportional to the number of launches. Dr Prasad felt that a model similar to the Kyoto protocol could fix launch quotas for space faring nations and also constitiute debris credits and debris trading.

Later speaking to this newspaper, he said that this idea had been mooted at several UN meets and would probably take many years to be actively pursued. "It was through our persistent voice that the west had to drop some proposals seeking to limit launches by nations. We impressed in the UN and other fora the need to make these debris mitigation steps voluntary and in steps," he said. Dr Prasad  has represented India in the UN for over 11 years.

In the period between 1957-2002 the number of launches were most by the former Soviet Union at 2,674 followed by the US at 1235 and the EU at 154.

Dr Prasad quoted from the Orbital Debris Quarterly News as noting that as of Jan 2006, the debris by CIS stood at 4039 followed by US at 3964, China at 361 and India at142. To a question on how anything similar to the Kyoto Protocol will not be ratified by the US, Dr Prasad said, "The world is made up of more than the US. It is up to the rest of the nations to take up ways to mitigate the problem."

In this regard, he also noted how the Moon Treaty had also not been ratified by the US. "India has signed it but not ratified as we want to wait and watch the others. We have always stood by what the treaty says that any exploitation of the moon should be for the common good of the mankind. That is not appreciated by some powers."

There are five international treaties formulated and signed by most of the space faring nations. The most important is the Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Treaty. However, as Prof Mahulena Hoffman, Germany says there are many loopholes in the present treaties and scope.