LONDON - Global investment in low-carbon energy dipped in 2009 after five years of annual increases fueled by a political response to climate change and high oil prices, a report found on Thursday.

Public and private investment in clean energy dominated by wind energy dropped 6.5 percent to $145 billion, from $155 billion in 2008, as project developers were hit by frozen credit markets, said research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

But 2010 would be a strong year, aided by stimulus cash about 15 percent of which governments are expected to spend on green projects such as making houses more efficient and boosting wind and solar power, said Chief Executive Michael Liebreich.

I think 2010 will be a good year, he told Reuters.

Some investors and analysts are downbeat following a U.N. summit in Copenhagen in December which failed to agree a deadline to agree a new legally-binding climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol in 2013, in a weak Copenhagen Accord.

But Liebreich pointed to a raft of new national policies to cut carbon emissions in the run-up to the summit, such as pledges from China, India and South Korea.

The 6.5 percent drop in 2009 masked bigger falls in certain regions. Investment dropped 14 percent in the EMEA region, and by 25 percent in the Americas, but rose in Asia-Oceania by 25 percent -- driven by the wind sector -- the research group found.

That increase saw Asia leapfrog the Americas into second place behind Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The bulk of private finance can be divided into equity capital raised on stock markets, project finance -- largely as debt to install energy equipment -- and private equity and venture capital to support growing private companies.

Of those three classes, private equity and venture capital registered by far the biggest fall, at 44 percent. (Reporting by Gerard Wynn, Editing by Sue Thomas)

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