The EPA is making it clear that this decision will not be used to sway climate change policies.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Polar bears were listed on Wednesday as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act because their sea ice habitat is melting away, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced.

Kempthorne acknowledged that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions contribute to the global warming that is damaging the Arctic ice but stressed that the protective status for polar bears will not target climate change.

"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 is not "abused to make global warming policies."

The Endangered Species Act requires that decisions to protect wildlife are based solely on science, and not on economic factors.

Kempthorne said his administrative rule aims at defining the scope of the decision, and at "limiting the unintended harm to the society and the economy of the United States."

Wednesday's decision was one day ahead of a court-ordered deadline. The U.S. government was initially supposed to decide in January but postponed its decision, citing the volume of scientific data to be considered.

(Reporting by Deborah Zabarenko, editing by David Alexander)

(For more Reuters information on the environment, see blogs.reuters.com/environment/)