PARIS, France (AFP) — The emperor penguin has been declared an endangered species as climate change pushes the icon of Antarctica a step closer to extinction, the global authority on threatened wildlife announced on Thursday.

Its change of status from “near threatened” to “endangered”, made by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), underscores the existential threat for ice-dependent species as global warming profoundly reshapes the frozen continent.

The Red List of Threatened Species is maintained by the IUCN and is the global reference on the extinction status of plants, animals and fungi.

Emperor penguins rely on stable sea ice — essentially platforms of frozen ocean water — to live, hunt and breed.

Their numbers have plummeted as warming driven by greenhouse gas emissions has caused sea ice to break up earlier in the year. 

The IUCN — a global network of scientists, governments and conservation groups — said changes in sea ice were expected to halve the emperor penguin population by the 2080s.

They “concluded that human-induced climate change poses the most significant threat to emperor penguins,” Philip Trathan, part of the IUCN expert group who worked on the Red List assessment, said in a statement.

The largest and heaviest of the penguin species, boasting a brilliant golden-orange streak on the neck, emperor penguins have become symbolic of the fight to survive in Antarctica’s harsh climes. They breed on the sea ice in the dead of winter, the males keeping their eggs warm beneath their feet. 

The frozen surface also provides a habitat for their chicks during molting season before they are waterproof.