KEY POINTS:
It's a classic stand-off between one of the world's best loved animals and one of its most unpopular leaders, between the planet's largest bear and its most powerful man. And it comes to a head this week.
On Thursday, by order of a federal judge, George W. Bush must stop stalling on whether to designate the polar bear as a species endangered by global warming. The designation could have huge consequences for his climate-change policies; his Administration would, by law, have to avoid doing anything that would "jeopardise the continued existence" of the mammal whose habitat is melting away.
The Administration has delayed a decision so long and was seeking to put it off for months more. But two weeks ago Claudia Wilken, the judge, ruled it had long been "in violation of the law", and ordered it to act by May 15.
Polar bears depend on the sea ice for hunting, mating and moving around. Last summer, 517,000sq km - almost twice the size of New Zealand - melted for the first time, shrinking the frozen sea to an extent that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted would not occur until 2050. More and more scientists believe the Arctic could be ice-free in summer in little more than 20 years.
In February 2005, US conservation groups petitioned their Government to list the polar bear as the first species to be endangered by global warming, starting a long battle with the White House. The conservationists have won the argument. A study commissioned from the US Geological Survey concluded that two-thirds of the world's 20,000-25,000 polar bears would vanish by 2050.
In December 2006, the Administration was forced by court action to propose designating the bear, but has delayed doing so until now. In the meantime the Administration has sold oil companies 448 rights to drill in prime polar bear habitat for a staggering US$2.6 billion ($3.4 billion).
Kassie Siegel, of the Centre for Biological Diversity says: "Polar bears need our help now."
- INDEPENDENT
