Dangerous climate change is a legal term introduced by the UN in its 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which calls for the stabilisation of greenhouse gases so as to ‘prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’. In 2004, the European Climate Forum highlighted more specific indicators of dangerous climate change, including circumstances that could lead to global and unprecedented consequences, extinction of iconic species (e.g. the Polar Bear), loss of entire ecosystems or human cultures, a threat to water resources, and a significant rise in mortality rates. Dangerous climate change is likely to happen suddenly in response to the crossing of specific thresholds or achievement of so-called tipping points. Two major resulting threats relate to rapidly rising sea-levels and the shutting down of the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation (ATHC) – the Gulf Stream and associated currents.