On Tuesday the Coca-Cola company debuted it's white Coke can. 1.4 billion of Coke's famous red cans will be turning white to raise awareness of the world's polar bears.

Coca-Cola is initially donating $2 million to the World Wildlife Fund to fund polar bear protection efforts and will match consumer donations through March 15 up to $1 million.

While Coca-Cola Company representatives acknowledged that they wanted to bring attention to the plight of polar bears, whose "lives are intimately bound up with sea ice, which is now melting at an alarming rate with sea ice", there was no mention of the underlying reasons why sea ice melting. Does this news mean that the company recognizes climate change, and the ways in which consumption and major corporations contribute to climate change?

PR stunt or noble action? May be a bit of both? What are your thoughts?

I guess we can at least find consolation in the fact that now when we drink empty calories, bath our teeth in high fructose corn syrup and citric acid, and support a hugely wealthy global corporation, we’ll also be helping polar bears. Call it even?

I think it is great when companies like Coca-Cola donate money to causes. I hope that Coca-Cola, and other major corporations, will continue to realize the climate change (as well as other things) and also continue to donate to these causes.
It is probably both a PR stunt and noble deed but mostly for PR. If Coca-Cola announces that they are giving massive sums of money to climate change then people will notice it more.

I agree that even if it is an advertising stunt, it is good to raise awareness of both the polar bear crisis and climate change. My only concern is that they also need to emphasize the importance of recycling. If it is an attempt to get people to buy and consume more coke/diet coke (which is definitely part of the reason they are doing this), there will be no positive environmental impact if people do not recycle their cans.

I completely agree. I almost forgot about that! The company does need to work recycling into their advertisement(s). They will, probably, be making more sales with this advertisement and it would definitely defeat the purpose.
All companies that sell recyclable products should promote recycling in their ads for that matter.