Pachauri received the 'Doctor of Humane Letters' from Richard Levin, President of Yale University, at a function yesterday in the varsity campus in the United States.
He was conferred the doctorate for the instrumental role he played to bring the scientists together to sound an alarm about the future of earth, the Yale University said in a release today.
As author of one of the first major reports on global warming, the university noted that Pachauri helped lay the foundation for the Kyoto Protocol of 1997.
The American varsity has earlier conferred honorary degrees on musician Paul McCartney, astronomer Martin Rees, architect Cesar Pelli, former US trade representative Carla Hills and poet John Lawrence Ashbery.
