"One of the 70 authors of a draft U.N. report on climate change said he had pulled out of the writing team because it was 'alarmist' about the threat.

Richard Tol told Reuters he disagreed with some findings of the summary to be issued in Japan on March 31.

'The drafts became too alarmist,' the Dutch professor of economics at Sussex University in England said by telephone from Yokohama, Japan, where governments and scientists are meeting to edit and approve the report.

But he acknowledged some other authors 'strongly disagree with me'.

The final draft says warming will disrupt food supplies, slow economic growth, and may already be causing irreversible damage to coral reefs and the Arctic."

Alister Doyle reports for Reuters March 28, 2014. [2]