The Earth is out of balance.

That’s the message from a United Nations report released late Sunday that looked at how much energy from the sun is absorbed by the Earth or reflected back into space.

Researchers found the gap between the two is the biggest since measurements began in 1960, meaning more of the sun’s heat energy is now staying on Earth. And that energy imbalance is heating up the oceans, atmosphere, and frozen regions of the world, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Global Climate report.

Ashkay Deoras, a research scientist at Britain’s National Center for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading, likened the planet to a heated room with the windows closed.

“If you open the window, naturally, you will allow the hot air to escape,” said Dr. Deoras, who was not associated with the report. “But now what is happening is that, because of all these greenhouse gases, they are just trapping more and more heat. The planet is just not getting a chance to cool down.”

In previous reports, the U.N.-based meteorological organization documented changes in each element of the Earth’s system, such as surface temperatures, ocean heat, melting glaciers and sea level rise. This year, the authors, who include climate scientists and meteorologists, examined shifts on a wider scale.

A biodiversity summit is where scientists and policy-makers meet for talks on what can be done to preserve biodiversity.

Biodiversity is the variety of all life on Earth - including animals, plants, fungi and micro-organisms like bacteria.

Together they provide the planet with everything necessary for survival, including fresh water, clean air, food and medicine. Biodiversity matters because humans cannot get these benefits from individual species - a rich variety of living things must work together in harmony as part of an ecosystem.

Plants, for example, are very important for improving our physical environment: cleaning the air, limiting rising temperatures and providing protection against climate change.

Reverse nature's decline or there is no future - UN

The United Nations' biodiversity chief says global talks under way in Montreal are the "last chance" to reverse the destruction of the natural world.

"Biodiversity is the foundation of life. Without it, there is no life," Elizabeth Maruma Mrema stated.

But she is worried about the amount of work still needed for the 196 countries to reach an agreement.