Sea levels are rising faster than predicted, and are likely to surge by 50cm-1m by the end of the century owing to climate change, scientists said yesterday. Such levels would cause serious harm to coastal areas, said researchers, and affect at least 10 per cent of the world's population.

Scientists at an international conference on climate change in Copenhagen yesterday heard that predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body of climate experts convened by the UN, had underestimated the extent of sea level rises.