NYSE Euronext and Nasdaq OMX on Thursday announced deals to increase their involvement with carbon trading.

The NYSE Euronext said that BlueNext, its majority-owned environmental trading exchange, is partnering with the China-Beijing Environmental Exchange, to set up an international carbon-trading related information platform. The two firms signed a deal that includes: a cross-marketing partnership; and, a comprehensive data sharing agreement that will promote investment- and buyer information of Clean Development Mechanism projects in China.

“This is another step in our wish to expand our market into the great potential that is China, and the rest of Asia; but also another step in our long held ambition to be the reference point for a single international price for carbon,” said Serge Harry, chairman and CEO of BlueNext.

At the same time the Nasdaq OMX Group, Inc. announced that it is expanding its cooperation with the Polish Power Exchange, Towarowa Giełda Energii.

The firms have agreed that Polish Power Exchange members will be provided access to the Nasdaq OMX’s global carbon market as non-clearing members, allowing them to trade European Emission Allowances and Certified Emission Reductions. Additionally, the TGE will extend its use of the trading system to be provided by Nasdaq OMX through 2014.

Separately, Deutsche Bank’s Asset Management division launched a real-time carbon counter in the middle of New York City Thursday, as part of a climate change education effort.

The firm unveiled a digital billboard displaying the running total of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere outside Madison Square Garden in New York. The Carbon Counter is part of a climate-change awareness and education initiative sponsored by DB Climate Change Advisors group. The sign itself is carbon neutral, using carbon credits to offset its energy use while the digital numbers are generated by low-energy LEDs.

“The Carbon Counter is a bold new experiment in communicating climate science to the public,” said Ronald Prinn, professor of atmospheric science at MIT. “With climate change in the news around the world, it is useful to have an up-to-date estimate of a single integrating number expressing the trends in the long-lived greenhouse gases contributing to that change. This number can help convey how fast these greenhouse gases are increasing, and the progress, or lack thereof, in slowing the rate of increase.”

The number reported on the billboard is based on measurements developed by scientists at the MIT that include all long-lived greenhouse gases covered under the Kyoto and Montreal Protocols (24 gases excluding ozone and aerosols). The current quantity of long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as shown by the counter is 3.64 trillion metric tons, increasing by approximately 2 billion metric tons per month.

“Carbon in the atmosphere has reached an 800,000-year high,” said Kevin Parker, global head of DeAM and a member of Deutsche Bank’s Group executive committee. “We can’t see greenhouse gases, so it is easy to forget that they are accumulating rapidly. It will be a huge task to bring global emissions under control and my hope is that putting this data in the public view will spur both governments and markets to move us more quickly to a low-carbon economy. The science shows that unless this trend is addressed now there is a growing likelihood of increased warming and more severe disruptions for economies and societies.”

IE