The world as a whole is dangerously behind schedule in slowing catastrophic climate change, and its richest people will have to make big changes in their everyday lives in order to shift course, a major United Nations report warned Wednesday.

But nearly five years after a landmark international climate agreement in Paris, there are signs of a sea change, including from some of the biggest polluters in the world.

The ¡°undercurrent¡± of the global economy has shifted, said Christiana Figueres, a former U.N. diplomat who led the negotiations that yielded the Paris Agreement in 2015. ¡°We are moving faster than we ever were,¡± she said in a call with reporters Wednesday.