The CO2 is injected into oil wells and ultimately sealed in the bedrock. Petro Source is then able to sell a credit for the emissions it has contained to other companies which are still emitting CO2.

In Canada, an Ontario-based power-generating company has bought 1.9 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) created by Petro Source last year and this year. And in another transaction, a consortium of 11 Canadian energy groups has taken an option on more than 600,000 tonnes of CO2e that will be created up to the end of 2012.

The deal is not a fantasy. It was sealed on Monday via an online site, CO2e.com, whose promoters are trying to steal a march on the potentially enormous worldwide trade in greenhouse gas emissions, a hotly contested element in this weeks multi-nation negotiations on global warming in The Hague.

Emissions trading - which big polluters such as the US, Japan, Canada and Australia say is critical to their strategies for cutting harmful emissions is spawning a new breed of professional trader, many of whom are strutting their stuff in the corridors of the Netherlands Convention Centre.

Their presence in The Hague, together with their mantra of ``carbon commerce, lends weight to the adage ``Where theres muck theres brass.

And while government leaders and their experts have hunkered down to hard-nosed bargaining in a bid to find a political solution to the planets climate crisis, the New Age carbon traders have been enthusiastically promoting markets for dealing in so-called ``pollution credits or ``carbon credits.

Ultimately, they expect the trade to touch virtually every country as corporations look to trade away their dirty air in a bid to meet commitments to reduce emissions. ``Its a very powerful tool to enable real benefits for the atmosphere at a reasonable economic cost, says Sydney-based Steve Drummond of PricewaterhouseCoopers, a partner in CO2e.com together with the New York-based financial services group Cantor Fitzgerald and the legal firm Baker & McKenzie.

International emissions trading is already happening, but the market is nascent. The CO2e.com partners plan to act as market-makers, matching would-be buyers with sellers and offering legal and other advice. So far, theyve orchestrated 160 deals.

Traders expect the number of transactions to accelerate rapidly, irrespective of the fine print of any agreement at The Hague. They say trading emissions makes good economic and environmental sense because it encourages corporate innovation which locks in emission cuts and, subsequently, savings.

The Houston deal is expected to have a cascading effect. Petro Source plans to reinvest the money it got from the two trades in new technologies, thereby further reducing CO2 emissions. ``This just makes good business, says Petro Sources chief executive, Howard McCollum.

Another deal-maker, the US group Natsource , forged a transaction last week which involved the North American electricity utility EPCOR buying 50,000 tonnes of carbon credits from Fortum, owner of a Finnish power plant that switched from peat to biomass and now uses shrubs and crop residues for fuel.

Cleaner fuels and renewable energy projects like Denmarks extensive shift to wind power are obvious targets for emissions buyers, who are doing deals now in the expectation that trades will count toward reduction targets enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, if and when the document is finally ratified.

Investments in forest protection and sustainable forestry are other prospects: American Electric Power has helped double the size of a Bolivian national park, for example.

The Australian Government recently gave the go-ahead for Australias own domestic emissions trading scheme in a bid to encourage local deals like Pacific Hydro-Powercors 18Mw wind farm in advance of a final go-ahead on Kyoto.

The CO2e.com partners acknowledge risks for present day traders, not least because of the uncertainty surrounding implementation of the Kyoto measures and unknowns such as monitoring and verification rules. But Drummond is convinced that a well-regulated and transparent market will be the most efficient way of delivering emission cuts: ``Emissions trading is a first real step to reducing greenhouse emissions.

Noting that some industries genuinely cannot reduce emissions at an acceptable price, he goes on to ask: ``What government in its right mind is going to force domestic emissions cuts if it means shutting down a whole section of the economy?

Most green groups, however, together with a block of developing nations, argue that unlimited trading of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions represents a cop-out, allowing heavy-duty polluters to escape tough decisions on energy use at home.

Though emissions trading was enshrined in the Kyoto agreement concluded three years ago, environmentalists claim unlimited trading will undermine Kyotos ultimate objective of an average 5.2 per cent cut in 1990 emission levels by the end of this decade.

The European Union has argued for a cap on such trading one of a number of so-called ``flexibility mechanisms, along with carbon ``sinks, contained in the protocol at perhaps 50 per cent of a countrys emissions.

Green groups such as the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth see the US dodging its commitments by ``buying pollution credits from Russia and Ukraine whose economic collapse in the early 1990s led to a sharp fall in both countries emissions.

Of course, emissions trading is not entirely new. US companies have for a number of years been trading in the industrial pollutants sulphur and nitrogen oxide, which contribute to ``acid rain, and the World Wildlife Fund acknowledges the trade has helped meet targets and sharply reduce costs.