June 18 (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank’s Asset Management division created what it calls “the world’s first real-time carbon counter,” to record and display the quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The device, displayed on a 70-foot-tall billboard, was switched on this morning at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue in New York, above Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden. Germany’s largest bank says it intends to use the counter to promote climate- change awareness and the bank’s research capacity, along with investment opportunities in carbon cap-and-trade markets.

“Carbon in the atmosphere has reached an 800,000-year high,” Kevin Parker, global head of Deutsche Bank’s Asset Management division, said in a news release. “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 24-hour-a-day carbon counter billboard uses low-risk carbon credits to offset its energy use, while illuminating digital numbers with 40,960 low-energy light-emitting diodes, the bank said. A continually updated Web site also displays its calculations.

The numbers shown are based on measurements developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and include all the long-lasting greenhouse gases in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which was established at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate change.

Increasing Rate

The counter currently shows the planet’s level at 3.64 trillion metric tons, increasing at a rate of 2 billion metric tons a month.

Last year, Deutsche Bank declared that it would reduce its global carbon emissions by 20 percent annually, with a goal of becoming “carbon-neutral” by 2013. It describes itself as “one of the leading climate change investors in the world, with approximately $4 billion under management as of March 2009.”

The counter made its debut with supporting speakers including climate-change experts Robert Socolow of Princeton University, John Reilly of MIT, Tim Wirth of the UN Foundation, Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University and Fred Krupp from the Environmental Defense Fund.

To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Goldman in New York City Hall at hgoldman@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 18, 2009 13:29 EDT