With the aim to record and display the quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, Deutsche Bank's Asset Management division recently came up with "the world's first real-time carbon counter."

Today morning, the device which is displayed on a 70-foot-tall billboard was switched at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue in New York, above Manhattan's Madison Square Garden.  

If adhered to Germany's largest bank then it aims to utilize the counter to promote climate- change awareness and the bank's research capacity, along with investment opportunities in carbon cap-and-trade markets.

Kevin Parker, global head of Deutsche Bank's Asset Management division, said in a news release, "Carbon in the atmosphere has reached an 800,000-year high. 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."

The banks confirmed that low-risk carbon credits are used by the 24-hour-a-day carbon counter billboard in order to offset its energy use, while illuminating digital numbers with 40,960 low-energy light-emitting diodes. The calculations are also displayed by continually updated Web site.  

It should be noted that numbers presented are based on measurements developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They also include all the long-lasting greenhouse gases in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which was established at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate change.