United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday called for global consensus on ending the biodiversity crisis that has threatened the survival of humankind.

"Our two-century-long experiment with burning fossil fuels, destroying forests, wilderness and oceans, and degrading the land, has caused a biosphere catastrophe," Guterres said in his speech via video at a UN conference held in China.

The 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, known as COP15, kicked off Monday in Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province.

He thanked China for hosting the meeting to create a framework, saying that "an ambitious and effective post-2020 global biodiversity framework, with clear targets and benchmarks, can put nature and people back on track."

"We need bold actions," he said, calling for support to the legal right of all people, to tackle the drivers of biodiversity loss, to transform national and global accounting systems, and support to developing countries, including significant financial resources and technology transfer, among others.

The UN chief described humanity's interference with nature as a "suicidal war" and stressed that "we are losing" it.

"The rate of species loss is tens to hundreds of times higher than the average of the past 10 million years – and accelerating. Over a million species of plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates are at risk – many within decades," he added.

World leaders echo Guterres' view and highlight importance of the meeting

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday called for closer international cooperation on preserving biodiversity and providing related support to developing countries.

"It is certainly important that national priorities and specificities of each state be taken into account, and special attention be given to the needs of developing and least developed countries," he said at the meeting.

"We fully support the idea of achieving closer international cooperation on all urgent issues of protecting flora and fauna as well as air and water resources," Putin said, underlining that "the sovereignty of states over their natural resources and economic activities" should be respected to this end.

He expressed his appreciation to China for supporting efforts to enhance international cooperation on environmental matters, adding that this is a common task for all States, for all humankind, without exaggeration.

President of Costa Rica Carlos Alvarado Quesada said at the meeting that preserving biodiversity will not only ease climate crisis but become "a win for people and our economies." 

"As we are facing the devastating consequences of COVID-19, we must think beyond the present and put nature in the center of our economies," he added

Stressing that 55 percent of global gross domestic product depends on high-functioning biodiversity and ecosystem services, Alvarado noted the economic benefits of protecting biodiversity outweigh the costs.

The conference comes at an extremely important time as the whole world is facing a series of overlapping crises, he said, calling on countries and other stakeholders to take this opportunity to seek consensus on a post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

Papua New Guinean (PNG) Prime Minister James Marape also called at the meeting for financial support to help the island country preserve its rain-forests, or the "lungs of the world."

"My country needs development financing in exchange for concentrated effort on conservation, and I would like to use the platform of this forum to invite partnerships for this most worthwhile cause," Marape said.

"PNG needs partners, responsible and like-minded individuals, corporate citizens and governments who can assist us conserve this 13 percent rain-forests – this important lungs of the world – and this precious biodiversity that is contained in our country," Marape said.

The theme of the Kunming conference, "Ecological Civilization: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth," is something PNG is now keenly pursuing" Marape added.

The ongoing COP15 is the first global conference convened by the UN highlighting ecological civilization, a philosophy proposed by China. 

(With input from Xinhua)