The report warns countries have a short window to place the world on a sustainable trajectory for climate change and habitat destruction, baldly stating: “It is no exaggeration to say that what happens in the next five years will determine the future of life on Earth.”

WWF Australia’s chief executive Dermot O’Gorman said Earth was “sending out an SOS”.

“Tackling the linked crises of nature loss and climate change requires a huge collective effort,” he said.

“There is still time to turn things around. To play our part, the Australian government needs to act quickly to improve national environmental laws and keep its promises to protect nature on a global level.”

Despite the bleak picture the report paints, WWF International director general Kirsten Schuijt said it wasn’t necessary to “slip into despair”.

“Fortunately, while time is running out, we are not yet past the point of no return. The power – and opportunity − are in our hands to change the trajectory.”

The report’s release on Thursday comes on the final day of the Global Nature Positive Summit in Sydney. The nature positive movement aims to stop and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, leading to a “full recovery” of nature by 2050.

Marco Lambertini, a former director of the WWF and the driving force behind the nature positive movement, said the destruction of nature had dramatically expanded since World War II.

While this increased life expectancy and cut poverty, it also resulted in the broadscale destruction of the environment, which was reaching the limit of its capacity to survive the assault.

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As a result, the so-called “ecosystem services” nature provides as we extract energy, wood, fibre, water and fish from world around us is depleting, with increasing measurable impact on world economies.

“The signals are starting to come through,” Lambertini told this masthead from the summit.

“Because we have based our development on exploitation of nature, we are at risk of going back unless we find a way to stop the destruction. It is not a moral question, it is now a material question about our future prosperity, our social cohesion, our health.”

The Living Planet report found that, as things stand, international emissions reductions commitments would lead to average global temperatures increasing to such an extent they would trigger “multiple catastrophic tipping points”.

“Even though 74 per cent of nations that signed onto the 2015 Paris Agreement have strengthened their commitments to reduce or limit greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, current commitments would lead to an average global temperature increase of almost 3 degrees by the end of the century.”

Lambertini said that just as world leaders had agreed to try to arrest global warming, they needed quantifiable targets and standards to reverse the “great acceleration” of natural destruction.

“Without that there won’t be any ability for companies to know whether they are really delivering something, a contribution to the nature positive outcome.”

Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said nature positive and net-zero objectives “work together”.

“They should go hand in hand because nature-based solutions should be used to achieve both our environment and our climate goals,” Plibersek said.