Ice cores have provided many of the key pieces of evidence about past changes in climate and in forcing factors for climate. In particular, the core from Vostok (Antarctica) shows how climate and greenhouse gases have been intimately linked over the last 400,000 years. The European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) is a consortium of scientists from 10 European countries that has set out to drill two new cores: one giving an even longer record, the other giving far more detail about the last climatic cycle. In a major publication, the team have presented data extending nearly 800,000 years in the past, with more to come. Future plans by the international ice coring community include ideas to extend the record in both Antarctica and Greenland yet further into the past, and to understand the spatial variability of polar climate on different timescales.