Photo taken on Aug. 5, 2018 shows the Rhone Glacier covered with white blankets near the Furka Pass in Switzerland. The Rhone Glacier is protected by special white blankets to prevent it from further melting as a result of global warming. (Xinhua/Xu Jinquan)

The global economy's business-as-usual approach to cope with climate change has seen Earth's "vital signs" deteriorate to record levels, an influential group of scientists said Wednesday.

They warned that several climate tipping points were now imminent.

The researchers, part of a group of more than 14,000 scientists who have signed on to an initiative declaring a worldwide climate emergency, said that governments had consistently failed to address the root cause of climate change: "the overexploitation of the Earth." 

Since a similar assessment in 2019, they noted an "unprecedented surge" in climate-related disasters, including flooding in South America and Southeast Asia, record-shattering heat waves and wildfires in Australia and the US, and devastating cyclones in Africa.

Of 31 "vital signs," key metrics of planetary health that include greenhouse gas emissions, glacier thickness, sea-ice extent and deforestation, they found that 18 hit record highs or lows. 

For example, despite a dip in pollution linked to the pandemic, levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane hit all-time highs in 2021.

Greenland and Antarctica both recently showed all-time low levels of ice mass, and glaciers are melting 31 percent faster than they did just 15 years ago, the authors said. 

Both ocean heat and global sea levels set new records since 2019, and the annual loss rate of the Brazilian Amazon reached a 12-year high in 2020. 

Echoing previous research, they said that forest degradation linked to fire, drought and logging was causing parts of the Brazilian Amazon to now act as a source of carbon, rather than absorb the gas from the atmosphere. Livestock are now at record levels, numbering more than 4 billion and with a mass exceeding that of all humans and wild land mammals combined, they said.

The researchers said there was "mounting evidence that we are nearing or have already crossed" a number of climate tipping points. 

"Given these alarming developments, we need short, frequent, and easily accessible updates on the climate emergency," said the study, published in the journal BioScience. 

AFP