Barack Obama made an urgent plea for the world to tackle global warming and throw its weight behind a global pact in December to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

The president made his remarks at a major conference in Anchorage, Alaska to highlight a region imperilled by melting sea ice and thawing permafrost.

“This year in Paris has to be the year that the world finally reaches an agreement to protect the one planet that we’ve got while we still can,” Obama told foreign ministers and delegates in an address at the Glacier summit, organised by the State Department.

“This is within our power.  This is a solvable problem if we start now.”