"For anyone who might have grown complacent, these figures demand that we must do more to address our environmental obligations," Energy Minister Brian Wilson said in a statement.

Britain's target under the Kyoto Protocol is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 12.5 percent on 1990 levels by 2010. The country has also set a domestic goal to reduce emissions by 20 percent on 1990 levels.

The government attributed the rise in carbon emissions to an increased use of coal in electricity generation and colder weather in the winter months.

Wilson said he hoped the government's commitment to generate 10 percent of the nation's power from renewable energy within the decade, from less than three percent currently, and the start of emissions trading in April would reverse the current upward trend in carbon emissions.

Coal-burning has become more popular in Britain in the last couple of years as generators switch to the more polluting fuel in favour of cleaner but more expensive natural gas in the increasingly competitive wholesale electricity market.

A report earlier this year by economic forecaster Cambridge Econometrics said Britain was likely to miss its targets for reducing its carbon dioxide emissions because the target had been set partly on the assumption generators would continue to embrace cleaner-burning gas-fired power stations.

But the "dash for gas" - the defining characteristic of the last decade which saw gas use shoot up - has stalled in the face of soaring wholsale gas prices.