The European Climate Exchange is based in London.

The Chicago Climate Exchange is based in Chicago.

The Global Emissions Exchange wants to open a branch in your living room.

Or, say, in your hybrid.

After all, GEX founder Philip Gotthelf subtitles the startup the "people's exchange."

He says it's the first carbon-credit-trading program to try to harness the mass market to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

"Fractional" trading is the operative term.

It means, in essence, offering Joe Consumer a small monetary incentive to go to the store and pick up a compact fluorescent light bulb or a gallon of biofuel and register the purchases through GEX.

Such choices scale back by a fraction the greenhouse gases that spew into the sky when everybody shops conventionally.

The other exchanges do not deal with these minute wisps of gas. They concentrate on the smokestack crowd.

GEX is also angling to bring aboard the big guys. But Gotthelf, a Closter, N.J.-based commodities guru often tapped by CNBC and other media outlets, believes the little ones also matter.

Especially if you lump them all together.

Particularly if you leverage grass-roots participation through, for example, buyers clubs and university alumni associations.

He's getting help with those ideas here.

Lancaster-based marketing consultant Jeffrey Woodman has been talking up GEX to area businesses, municipalities and government officials.

Amerigreen Biofuels of Middletown has jumped squarely on the exchange bandwagon.

One way Amerigreen might ramp up GEX participation while also encouraging people to buy more biofuel would be to issue a card that automatically registers purchases, said Douglas G. Shand, the company's chief executive officer.

The important thing is to get the public thinking about hands-on strategies to fight pollution and high energy costs, Shand added.

"With oil at $120 a barrel, people better start thinking hard."

Going full blast
The mechanics of a commodities exchange based on invisible gases can be difficult to grasp and verify.

But the logic is simple.

Society assigns a monetary value to greenhouse gas emissions and then trades these "carbon credits" as a way to meet mandatory reductions.

Those who can cut back their pollution sell allowances to those who can't.

The system is going full blast in Europe, where carbon is selling for more than 30 euros (about $46) a metric ton under emissions restrictions set by the Kyoto Protocol.

The United States did not ratify the treaty. Carbon trading here is voluntary.

But American-based exchanges are emerging in expectation that Washington will impose a cap-and-trade program after the 2008 election.

One Wall Street-fueled startup, The Green Exchange, was launched in late 2007 by Nymex Holdings, the parent company of the New York Mercantile Exchange, and Evolution Markets, the biggest environmental credits broker.

The big boys play with big numbers.

A "carbon financial instrument" on the five-year-old Chicago Climate Exchange equals 100 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

The GEX also will deal in tons of carbon. But it will focus on increments.

"Even one ton is significant," said GEX analyst Nathan Guedalia. "Even one gallon we can account for. No amount is too small" to track.

Burning a gallon of biodiesel fuel creates 17 fewer pounds of carbon dioxide than burning a gallon of gasoline, Guedalia said.

Consuming a gallon of gas, which weighs about six pounds, generates about 20 pounds of CO2.

(That might sound illogical but the calculation is based on the fact that each vaporized carbon molecule bonds with two heavier oxygen molecules to form CO2.)

People or organizations who register their purchases by logging on to the www.globalemissionsexchange.com electronic meeting place — there's no dues and no contract, unlike other exchanges — may sell, offset, swap or donate the credits, or simply hold on to them and allow them to expire.

Among other things, the site allows visitors to calculate their carbon footprint and points the way to environmentally responsible products.

The exchange retains a portion of the emissions credit as income. The consumer, too, can choose to redeem a portion.

Gotthelf gave some examples of paybacks.

Based on the going rate for carbon credits in the United States, $6 a ton, an average household could reap $30 a year by replacing incandescent bulbs with more efficient compact fluorescents.

A typical home that emits 14 tons of carbon a year could get back $74 by installing solar technology and going off the power grid.

"They can tell us to sell [the credits] and we send them a check," Gotthelf said.

"It's a small incentive to do the right thing," he added. The reward would increase significantly if carbon becomes a hot cap-and-trade commodity.

Such ideas are laudable, said Bill Burtis, a spokesman for Cool Air, Clean Planet in Portsmouth, N.H. "I think it's great that we create incentives for people to take action."

However, Burtis added, it's important to avoid speculative "business-as-usual" offsets that reward people for something they would have done anyway.

As the market develops, Burtis predicted, "these things will get tangled."

But Gotthelf agreed that "you can't start creating economic value out of thin air, no pun intended. That kind of creation of CO2 is going to be scrutinized very heavily."

Gotthelf can argue both sides of the debates over peak oil and human-caused global warming. Still, he said, he hopes society will one day achieve carbon neutrality.

Carbon trading is a viable way to get there, added Gotthelf, who said he is talking with Wal-Mart, among others, about registering purchases of CFL lightbulbs and other green products on the GEX.

Exchange participants will be way ahead of the game should government carbon cutbacks kick in, Gotthelf said.

"No matter whether it's one bulb or a million bulbs, start tracking it now," he said.

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Jon Rutter is a staff writer for the Sunday News. His e-mail address is jrutter@lnpnews.com.