UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- "No year in my living memory has ever put into focus the necessity to rethink the way we go forward," a United Nations (UN) senior official has said.

In the past 30 years since the Human Development Index (HDI) was launched, the index for the first time "reflects a reversal in progress," Achim Steiner, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), told Xinhua in an exclusive interview recently.

"From that perspective, 2020 is a major setback," Steiner said, noting that "hundreds of millions of people have experienced it and the economic indicators are certainly reflecting that."

Launched Tuesday, the 30th edition of the Human Development Report, "The Next Frontier: Human Development and the Anthropocene," best supported Steiner's statement with the data that more than 50 countries have dropped out of the very high human development group as measured by the new index, reflecting their large impacts on climate and nature.

By adjusting the HDI, which measures a nation's health, education, and standards of living, to include two more elements: a country's carbon dioxide emissions and its material footprint, the index shows how the global development landscape would change if humanity's progress is defined largely by both the well-being of people and the planet.

Under enormous pressure from the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and natural destruction, warning lights for the planet and societies are "flashing red" -- and now it's time to choose a safer, fairer path for human development, the UN concluded in the report.

Speaking of the ongoing pandemic, Steiner said that what COVID-19 has illustrated beyond the statistics of economic and social reversal is "an extreme vulnerability."

"Every country right now is reflecting on what is progress really going to mean," the UN development chief said.

He underscored that the next frontier for human development will require "working with and not against nature, while transforming social norms, values, and government and financial incentives."

The UNDP head cited the estimates in the report that by 2100, the poorest countries in the world could experience up to 100 more days of extreme weather due to climate change each year -- a number that could be cut in half if the Paris Agreement on climate change is fully implemented.

To redesign the paths to progress, countries should make better choices, and stop subsidies which hinder new technologies and innovations from actually being used, Steiner said, underscoring the importance of scientific policy-making.

"This is a generational moment," said Steiner. "Choices we make today in the midst of this (COVID-19) crisis can either lock us in ... a scenario where we will have over a billion people living in extreme poverty by 2030, or we will have a completely different outlook."

"In that sense ... 2020 may also become a year of major reorientation and rethinking," he said. "A crisis is an opportunity."

On the typical role of the UN in helping the world move onto a planet-friendly development path, Steiner said that the world body itself is "a very powerful illustration of how out of crisis, some very aspirational ideas can be born."

"Tensions will always be there, but the WHO (World Health Organization) has played an absolutely fundamental role in the crisis. It is also playing a vital role as part of the United Nations on the vaccine initiative to ensure that vaccines are available equitably across the globe." he said.

He said that in the COVID-19 era, people have seen two examples of how technology and innovation "have been absolutely central in saving people out of this economic freefall and health crisis."

"We hope that this year's human development report gives expression to a long-held desire to find a better way to think about progress," said the UNDP chief, calling for "the world community to act together."