REFILE-Montreal Exchange launches its carbon market

(Refiles to correct June and December contract symbols in third paragraph)

TORONTO, May 30 (Reuters) - Canada's main derivatives market launched a carbon emissions exchange on Friday, seeing a growth opportunity in a country that is among the world's biggest polluters.

The Montreal Exchange, which was bought earlier this month by Toronto Stock Exchange operator TSX Group (X.TO), said the launch of futures trading went smoothly on the Montreal Climate Exchange, which gives polluters a platform on which to buy and sell carbon credits.

Early volume was light with some interest in carbon credits for June MCXM1 and December MCXZ1 delivery on the exchange, a joint venture with the Chicago Climate Exchange, which is owned by British holding company Climate Exchange Plc (CLIE.L).

"We know this is the first step in a gradual process of constructing environmental markets in Canada and attracting investors to participate," Luc Bertrand, the former head of the Montreal Exchange and deputy CEO of TSX Group, said in a statement.

Emissions trading has risen in recent years, especially in Europe, as governments restrict the greenhouse gases corporations can produce to try to curb climate change.

Since 1990, Canada's emissions have risen faster than all of the other Group of Eight industrialized nations -- the United States, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, Britain and Italy.

On the new platform, heavily-polluting companies can buy credits from those that produce lower emissions than allowed by law.

Canada has committed to the United Nations Kyoto Protocol, a pact that requires it to reduce greenhouse gases to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 -- a goal Canada's Conservative government says it cannot meet.

($1=$0.99 Canadian) (Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Peter Galloway)