The Indian said late Monday that member nations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would have to decide his fate after a damning UN-ordered review into the body's research.

But Pachauri, a vocal advocate for tough action against global warming, also criticized what he called "ideologically driven" attacks on the IPCC, which he has led since 2002.

The father-of-three has faced repeated calls to resign, notably over a false claim in a landmark IPCC report in 2007 that Himalayan glaciers which provide water to a billion people in Asia could be lost by 2035.

The former railways engineer has admitted the error badly damaged the credibility of the IPCC, which was set up to sift through scientific research and produce the most authoritative report possible for world leaders.

"This will be debated by all the governments of the world and they will decide what is to be implemented and when it is implemented," Pachauri said after the review made a series of recommendations to reform the IPCC.

But he insisted the body's core assertion that the world is heating up has not been refuted and he condemned "ideologically-driven posturing" in attacks on the IPCC, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

Pachauri has refused to accept personal responsibility for the glacier claim, which has now been withdrawn, saying he could not be expected to check all of the facts contained in reams of condensed research.

Educated in Britain and the United States, where he gained a double PhD in industrial engineering and economics at North Carolina State University, Pachauri is a veteran in the arena of sustainable development.

His critics, who once included former US vice president and climate change campaigner Al Gore, underline that he has no qualifications in science.

Gore, who jointly took the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, once called Pachauri the "'let's drag our feet' candidate" to head the IPCC and condemned his "virulent anti-American statements". They have since made up.

The cricket fan and vegetarian says his focus on saving the planet grew from a childhood in India's Himalayan foothills in the 1950s -- not far from some of the glaciers that have since blemished his career.

"It was so beautiful and unpolluted when I was a child," Pachauri told AFP in 2007. "One saw the beauty of nature at its most pristine. It gets into your soul and you don't lose that."

Outside his regular professional work in academic institutes, climate change bodies and company boardrooms, he has also been accused of raising temperatures with his debut novel which hit shelves early this year.

"Return to Almora" is laced with references to the out-sized sexual appetite of the protagonist Sanjay Nath, whose bed-time capers through university and later life are described in excruciating detail.

"Sometimes I'd be so overwhelmed trying to capture an incident of my life for the book that I would be moved to tears," Pachauri told the Indian Express after publication of his 23rd book, his first foray into fiction.

Pachauri's work in sustainable development is well recognised after decades spent as the head of The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, which works on shaping energy policy and developing green technologies.

He has also sat on the boards of a number of Indian energy companies, including state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and the Indian Oil Corporation. He denies his business interests are a conflict of interest.

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