The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s climate change report, published every six years or so, is a curious creature. On the one hand, it is perhaps the most rigorous and thoroughly vetted scientific assessment ever in any field of study; the IPCC’s 600 researchers from 32 countries pored over 9,200 scientific publications with 1,089 reviewers spread over 52 countries to produce a report running to thousands of pages.

On the other, it is a lightning rod for controversy and conspiracy theories; climate change scepticism has virtually become a cottage industry. The report’s fifth iteration its first iteration was released late last week and the next two will be out by the middle of next year is unlikely to be any different.

But all that static should not be allowed to drown out its central message: climate change is all too real and there is now a 95 per cent probability, as opposed to 90 per cent in 2007, 66 per cent in 2001 and about 50 per cent in 1995, that is caused by heat-trapping gases generated by humans.

Questions remain, of course, as they always will in any field of scientific inquiry. A major one here is that there has actually been a slowdown in the global average surface temperature over the past 15 years. And there is also the controversy over leaked emails by climate researchers called Climategate revealing that they had suppressed some information that could have proved detrimental to their theories. But it would be a mistake to ignore the very real dangers of climate change based on these.

The slowdown in temperature rise is actually consistent with prior models and does not negate current models. If the pause extends beyond the capability of those models to explain it, there will be cause for re-examination; that is not currently the case.

All of which makes the stasis when it comes to cooperative international efforts to address the issue all the more frustrating. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meetings such as the one in Copenhagen in 2009 have been high-profile disasters with no prospect of a binding agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

Thorny problems such as developing nations’ demand that developed nations bear the burden of their greater responsibility for global warming, and developed nations expecting emission reductions from developing countries that would negatively impact economic growth, seem as unsolvable as ever.

Under the circumstances, working unilaterally in parallel with global negotiations seems to be the only way forward.

Balancing development needs with emission control measures is indeed a difficult balancing act, especially in countries like India where the need for that development is so great. But it should be seen in the context of what climate change could cost India and that is a bleak picture, particularly given that neighbours like Pakistan and Bangladesh are highly vulnerable to its effects.

New Delhi’s move to announce unilateral emission cuts in 2009 is a step in the right direction; so is the focus of several states like Gujarat and Tamil Nadu on solar power. But more needs to be done, such as investing in clean coal technology as China is now doing. Apathy is not an option.