The Chicago Climate Exchange, the only exchange in North America for trading greenhouse-gas emissions, announced global expansions in Brazil and India Tuesday.

At the Third Clinton Global Initiative in New York City, the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) announced that the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina has become the first non-U.S. state to become a member, pledging to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions 6 percent by 2010.

Three organizations in India have joined CCX as so-called “offset aggregators.” Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project will assist rural citizens of the Indian state in creating small-scale projects to offset carbon emissions. They join the Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corp. and Reliance Energy Ltd., a subsidiary of India’s largest private utility company, as aggregators who bundle offsets of  less than 10,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year into amounts large enough for trading.

E-square Verification Private Ltd. will verify the carbon offsets produced by these projects, the company said. The Delhi-based company is the first verifier in India approved by the CCX.

The Chicago company’s announcement comes after a meeting last week of 17 industrial nations to discuss carbon emissions in large developing nations, including India, Brazil and China, who are not subject to the emissions limits outlined in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

By expanding internationally, CCX can “get the folks where the trades can have the biggest impact,” said Lynne Kiesling, a senior lecturer at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Economist Ian Lange said reduction of carbon emissions must be an international project. “CO2 mixes in the atmosphere,” said Lange who works for the National Center for Environmental Economics, a division of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. “It doesn’t matter where [gasses] are emitted, the damages will be equal everywhere.”

CCX reports members’ pledged carbon emission reductions have exceeded 540 million metric tons. By comparison, U.S. power plants produced 2.5 billion metric tons of CO2 in 2005, roughly one-third of total CO2 emitted in the country, according to Lange.

The Chicago Climate Exchange was founded by Richard Sandor, a Kellogg professor and former vice chairman of the Chicago Board of Trade, as the first voluntary exchange for the reduction of emissions of six greenhouse gasses. Organizations that produce less than their allotted emissions quota can sell emissions “credits” to organizations that produce more emissions.

“It’s a way to optimize resource use,” said Kiesling, "but it’s also a way to make money.”

The stock of its parent company, Climate Exchange, Plc., rose as much as 6.8 percent on the London Stock Exchange Tuesday, closing the day at 15.20 pounds ( about $31.04), up 6.4 percent from the previous day.