A polar bear jumps into the water at St-Felicien Wildlife Zoo in St-Felicien, Quebec March 6, 2008.(Xinhua/Reuters file Photo)
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    But the new protection was not accompanied by any proposals to address either climate change, which environmentalists say causes the deterioration of the bears' habitat, or drilling in the Arctic for the fossil fuels that spur the climate-warming greenhouse effect.

    In announcing the government's decision one day before a court-ordered deadline, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne acknowledged that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions contributed to the global warming damaging the polar bears' habitat.

    "While the legal standards under the Endangered Species Act compel me to list the polar bear as threatened, I want to make clear that this listing will not stop global climate change or prevent any sea ice from melting," he said at a briefing.

    "Any real solution requires action by all major economies for it to be effective," Kempthorne said. He also noted he was taking administrative and regulatory action to ensure this decision was not "abused to make global warming policies."

    The proper forum for combating climate change is among the world's major economies, Kempthorne said. The Bush administration has convened the world's worst greenhouse polluting nations in a series of international meetings.

    Polar bears live only in the Arctic and depend on sea ice as a platform for hunting seals. The U.S. Geological Survey said two-thirds of the world's polar bears -- some 16,000 -- could be gone by 2050 if predictions about melting sea ice hold true.

    This is the first time climate change has been a factor in proposing a threatened status for any U.S. species, and was spurred on by environmentalists who claimed a limited victory in Kempthorne's announcement.

    (Source: China Daily/Agencies)

U.S. must decide on polar bear's listing as endangered

    BEIJING, April 30 (Xinhuanet) -- U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken of Oakland, California, ruled Monday that the Bush administration must publish a final decision about whether to add the polar bear to the endangered species list.

    It's been more than three years since a California conservation group asked the federal government to protect polar bear habitat threatened by global warming. Full story

Canada: polar bear threatened, doesn't face extinction

    BEIJING, April 28 (Xinhuanet) -- A scientific committee advising Canada's government on Friday said the survival of the polar bear is threatened by climate change, but the species does not face extinction.

    The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada determined the polar bear was a "special concern species" because evidence wasn't strong enough to recommend elevating the polar bear's status to threatened or endangered. Full story