LONDON, Oct 3 (Reuters) - The world may need tougher curbs on global warming even beyond the most stringent now under consideration to help safeguard the planet, the head of the U.N. climate panel said on Wednesday.

Risks ranging from the extinction of animals and plants to rising sea levels mean that even a tough European Union goal of limiting global warming to 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels might be too lax.

"People are actually questioning if the 2 degrees Centigrade benchmark that has been set is safe enough," Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told a Reuters Environment Summit.

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