President Barack Obama on Tuesday tried to improve hopes of a deal at the Copenhagen climate summit, as a new report showed the crisis facing the planet is deeper than previously thought. Obama, speaking at a White House news conference with visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said the world was "one step closer to a successful outcome in Copenhagen." "It"s ... essential that all countries do what is necessary to reach a strong operational agreement that will confront the threat of climate change while serving as a stepping stone to a legally binding treaty," Obama said. In order to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius, a threshold widely adopted as safe, scientists say emissions by industrialized countries must fall by 25 to 40 percent over 1990 levels by 2020. The U.S. president"s remarks came as scientists warned the planet could be getting much hotter, much faster than expected only two years ago. The new report suggests that many of the estimates in a 2007 report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were too low. Earth could now warm by 7 degrees Celsius and sea levels could rise by more than one meter by 2100, scenarios that seemed unlikely only two years ago.
