DAVOS, Switzerland -- For all those who thought settling the Paris climate agreement was enough to lead to a low-carbon economy, its time to wake up and smell the coffee.

This message comes from none other than Christiana Figueres, who was instrumental in bringing 196 countries together to agree on the framework to limit runaway global warming.

Figueres, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change , said that while the talks were a success, "frankly, after 20 years of working towards that goal, that was the easy part."

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, she said it was now imperative to move from good words to action.

"We need to understand the clear signal from Paris and the clear risks and work out what are we all going to do," Figueres said, adding that global carbon emissions need to peak within the next five to 10 years.