VARIOUS: U.S government decides to place the polar bear on the Endangered Species list after pressure from environmental groups.

With their icy Arctic habitat melting, polar bears need new protections under the Endangered Species Act, Bush administration officials said on Wednesday (December 27) in a decision that raised questions about the president's sceptical stance on global warming. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed that the bears, a white-furred icon of the North, be listed as "threatened" under the act. Such a listing would force government agencies to ensure they take no action that jeopardizes the animal's existence. Kert Davies, Research Director for Greenpeace explained, "It's a significant step because by listing the polar bear they now have to create a plan to save the polar bear from the threat that it's listed under. We proposed this because of the impact of global warming to the Arctic and how that impacts the fate of the polar bear. Whether or not the administration acknowledges the impact of global warming and connects the dots and sees that solving global warming means cutting pollution, that remains to be seen. This administration as many people know has been terrible on the issue of global warming." Bush administration officials, however, indicated there would be no new curbs on oil drilling in Alaska or limits on greenhouse-gas emissions. The proposal, reached in a settlement with environmental groups that had sued the Bush administration for allegedly failing to protect the bears, means a formal listing decision will be made within 12 months of further study, officials said. Arctic ice coverage in recent years has been the lowest on record and studies have found polar bears to be smaller and suffering from lack of food. Some have drowned swimming vast distances of open water between ice floes and far fewer cubs are surviving the first months of life, government studies show. "Scientists are observing drowning polar bears and polar bears cannibalizing other bears' young, it's never been seen before by scientists," said Davies. "2005 was the worst year ever for the ice of the Arctic. Last winter the ice did not recover and this summer it was worse again. The latest ice science says that the summer ice will be gone within possibly forty years and that's very bad for the bear," he added. Polar bears number 20,000 to 25,000 worldwide, and about 4,700 in Alaska and the surrounding waters. President George W. Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gases and his administration has consistently rejected capping greenhouse gas emissions as bad for business and U.S. workers. Environmental organizations are doubtful whether the Bush administration will curb pollution which is widely believed to increase global warming. Said Davies, "They have to account for increases in global warming pollution that might be caused by a federal project or a by an energy development project. We don't know how they're going to handle this yet, but by law, they should have to account for the inevitable impact of global warming, to global warming, of anything that the government does." Scientists have concluded that global warming is caused mainly by heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and motor vehicles. The United States is the largest producer of those pollutants worldwide.

ITN Source | December 29, 2006

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