Carbon emissions fell in 2009 due to the recession – but not by as much as predicted, suggesting the fast upward trend will soon be resumed.

Those are the key findings from an analysis of 2009 emissions data issued in the journal Nature Geoscience a week before the UN climate summit opens.

Industrialised nations saw big falls in emissions – but major developing countries saw a continued rise.

The report suggests emissions will begin rising by 3% per year again.

‘What we find is a drop in emissions from fossil fuels in 2009 of 1.3%, which is not dramatic,’ said lead researcher Pierre Friedlingstein from the UK’s University of Exeter.

‘Based on GDP projections last year, we were expecting much more.

‘If you think about it, it’s like four days’ worth of emissions; it’s peanuts,’ he told BBC News.

The headline figure masked big differences between trends in different groups of countries.

Broadly, developed nations saw emissions fall – Japan fell by 11.8%, the UK by 8.6%, and Germany by 7% – whereas they continued to rise in developing countries with significant industrial output.

China’s emissions grew by 8%, and India’s by 6.2% – connected to the fact that during the recession, it was the industrialised world that really […]