A woman walks past the United Nations headquarters in New York, the United States, Sept. 14, 2020.Photo:Xinhua

World leaders on Monday pledged to take urgent action over the next 10 years to put nature and biodiversity on a path to recovery by 2030.

They made the pledge ahead of the Biodiversity Summit in New York on Wednesday. By Monday, the heads of state and government from 66 countries and the European Union have endorsed this pledge.

The leaders committed themselves to putting biodiversity, climate and the environment as a whole at the heart both of their countries' COVID-19 recovery strategies and investments and of their pursuit of national and international development and cooperation. They pledged that response to the current health and economic crisis is green and just, and contributes directly to recovering better and achieving sustainable societies.

They committed themselves to the development and full implementation of an ambitious and transformational post-2020 global biodiversity framework for adoption at the UN Biodiversity Conference in Kunming, China, in May 2021 as a key instrument to reach the Sustainable Development Goals.

Aerial photo shows egrets resting on top of trees at the Dafeng Milu National Nature Reserve in the city of Yancheng, east China's Jiangsu Province, June 26, 2019.Photo:Xinhua

The framework should include a set of clear and robust goals and targets backed up by a strong monitoring and review mechanism and means of implementation, they said.

The leaders pledged to redouble their efforts to end traditional silo thinking and to address the interrelated and interdependent challenges of biodiversity loss, land, freshwater and ocean degradation, deforestation, desertification, pollution and climate change in an integrated and coherent way.

They committed themselves to a transition to sustainable patterns of production and consumption and sustainable food systems.

They also pledged to raise ambition and align their domestic climate policies with the Paris Agreement, with enhanced nationally determined contributions and longterm strategies, to strengthen climate resilience in their economies and ecosystems, and promote convergence between climate and biodiversity finance.