CANADA: Polar bears are at risk of dying off if humans don’t reverse the trend of global warming, a blunt U.S. government report filed Thursday said.
“The single most important step for polar bear conservation is decisive action to address Arctic warming,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a draft recovery plan, part of the process after the agency listed the species as threatened in 2008.
“Short of action that effectively addresses the primary cause of diminishing sea ice, it is unlikely that polar bears will be recovered.”
Halting Arctic warming will require a global commitment, said Jenifer Kohout, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s regional program manager and a co-chair of the polar bear recovery team.
“In the meantime, the Fish and Wildlife Service and its partners are committed to doing everything within our control to give the bears a chance to survive while we await global action,” she said during a teleconference Thursday.
Greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming, which is reducing the amount of summer sea ice in the Arctic. Polar bears use sea ice for feeding, mating and giving birth. The Office of Naval Research said the past eight years have had the eight lowest amounts of summer sea ice on record.
At an Arctic Council meeting in Canada this spring, the United States, Russia and other Arctic countries vowed to cooperate on combatting climate change.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said at the time nations needed to significantly reduce emissions of black carbon and methane, short-lived greenhouse gases that are particularly potent sources of the Arctic’s warming. “These pollutants are a threat to everybody,” Kerry said.
Igor Polyakov, a climate change expert and professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said Friday there may be fluctuations of temperatures and Arctic sea ice cover over the next decade or two, but the long-term trend is for warmer temperatures, less ice and trouble for polar bears.
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