Downturn seen slowing CO2 rise

By Alister Doyle and Gerard Wynn

POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) - Economic slowdown will give a respite from surging greenhouse gas emissions but the world will struggle to shift in the long-term to new, greener lifestyles, delegates said at U.N. climate talks on Thursday.

Most experts expect the downturn will dent a 3 percent a year rise in world emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels. But one scientist said a repeat of the Great Depression of the 1930s would mean them falling by 35 percent.

"What we're seeing in a number of countries is slower growth rather than a decline," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters at the December 1-12 talks on a new climate treaty due to be agreed at the end of 2009.

"It would be a pretty depressing way to make progress, to find that recession was helping the world to kick an addiction to burning fossil fuels that spur rising greenhouse gases."

Many experts say that emissions in developing nations, such as China and India, are likely to keep rising and more than offset any falls in developed countries.

But opinions are divided.

Terry Barker, director of the Center for Climate Change Mitigation Research at Cambridge University said carbon emissions fell 35 percent from 1929 to 1932 during the Great Depression.

"I think there's a chance it could fall by more than that by 2012," he said. "The leading indicators are falling like a stone," he added, referring to oil and European carbon prices.