Warning that humanity's current pathway will cause it to plunge over the "precipice of unsustainability" if unaltered, a top UN official today called for an energetic push in the next decade to implement the Paris Climate Treaty and advance the new global sustainable development agenda.

Although the Paris Treaty aims to limit global warning to a 1.5 to 2 degree rise in global temperatures, "we are still at the moment heading for a 3-4 degree rise and it's not clear that civilization as we know it can continue to function at those levels," UN General Assembly President Peter Thomson of Fiji told government representatives gathered at FAO today for an event on the new, internationally-agreed 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

In addition to climate change, other pressing issues the Agenda aims to tackle include population growth, poverty and inequality, environmental degradation, and natural disasters, which are driving conflict, migration, and hunger and malnutrition.