The Bush administration on Wednesday made one of its most significant concessions to date on the dangers of global warming, proposing protection for the polar bear, whose habitat is threatened by the melting Arctic sea ice.
The recommendation by the Interior Secretary, Dick Kempthorne, that the bears be added to the list of threatened species, marks a reversal by the administration from its reluctance to acknowledge the consequences of climate change.
It would bar US government agencies from any activity that would jeopardise polar bears or their hunting grounds, and could potentially require the administration to compel US industries to curb their carbon dioxide output.
The move was hailed as a victory for environmental organisations which have increasingly resorted to the US courts to try to bring America in line with other countries on global warming.
”This is a very different position than the administration was taking a few years ago when it was casting doubt on the science of global warming,” said Brendan Cummings, a lawyer for the Centre for Biodiversity, one of three environmental organisations which brought a suit on behalf of the polar bear. ”It’s an affirmation that global warming is real.”
Kassie Siegel, also of the centre, said: ”This is the beginning of a sea change in the way this country addresses global warming. There is still time to save polar bears but we must reduce global warming pollution immediately.”
Kempthorne tried to downplay the decision, telling reporters it did not amount to a recognition of the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions. ”That is outside the scope of this,” he said.
But environmental activists said the stringent provisions of the Endangered Species Act — and the administration’s natural reluctance to avoid a public relations fiasco over its treatment of such a popular species — worked in the polar bears’ favour.
In their legal challenge, the organisations had invoked legal protections for endangered species, hoping to compel the administration to reduce its emissions of carbon dioxide.
Similar tactics have been pursued by environmental groups to confront other aspects of global warming, with activists joining municipal governments and 12 states to try to force the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon emissions under the country’s Clean Air Act.
For the Bush administration, which rejected the Kyoto protocols aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions, Kempthorne’s recommendation amounts to an important admission.
The public will have 90 days to comment on the proposal, and the administration will have up to a year to formally place the polar bear within the ranks of bison, prairie dog and bald eagle on the endangered list. According to the latest data, the Arctic is now warming at faster than twice the rate of the rest of the world, and sea ice is projected to disappear in summer months before 2050.
There are an estimated 22 000-25 000 polar bears worldwide with populations in the US, Canada, Greenland, Norway and Russia. However, according to a report last month by the World Conservation Union, five of these populations are in decline.
Researchers are concerned that polar bears will not survive climate change. Because the ice is breaking up earlier in the year, they have less time to hunt seals and build up fat reserves that have to sustain them for up to eight months of the year. As they have become thinner, so cub survival rates have fallen.
Scientists have observed that the bears are behaving differently to only a decade or so ago. Some have been found looking for food closer to human communities, others are changing diets and there have been three reported incidents of cannibalism.
The UN Environment Programme recently concluded that the extent of summer ice in the Arctic has shrunk by more than 25% over the past 50 years.
The US government’s official National Snow and Ice Data Centre says that a ”stunning” reduction in sea ice has taken place in the past four years.
Polar bear populations in Canada’s western Hudson Bay and the southern Beaufort Sea, which is shared between the US and Canada, have declined by 22% and 17% respectively over the past 20 years. – Guardian Unlimited Â