A multitude of new scientific findings show that climate change is racing ahead of the worst case forecasts of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). The dramatic melting of the Arctic summer sea-ice in 2007 and 2008 is probably the most visible example and has forced a significant re-evaluation of how close we may be to runaway climate change. It is now clear that it is melting substantially faster than the IPCC predicted only two years ago and there are concerns that the Arctic could be ice-free in summer within the next ten years. The climate system is dangerously close to this major tipping point and many other climate change impacts are also outstripping the IPCC projections. Changes in the real world make it clear that even the current level of global warming is too much. The Earth's capacity to deal with the effect of a continuously growing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has already been exceeded.