The Government has confirmed that emissions from agricultural sources, legacy waste and forestry will be exempt under the carbon pricing mechanism announced yesterday.

The proposal for a carbon price mechanism released by the Government recognises that it is not practical to impose liability on emissions from these industries.

The proposal does recognise that farmers and landholders can still play a vital part in reducing our carbon pollution.

The Government has already recognised this by bringing forward the design of the Carbon Farming Initiative in advance of the carbon pricing mechanism.

The Carbon Farming Initiative will demonstrate how land sector abatement is real and can deliver significant benefits to regional and rural Australia. It will allow sectors not covered by the carbon price mechanism to generate carbon credits for actions which reduce or store carbon pollution.

In particular, it will help famers move beyond existing practices to unlock farming techniques with better carbon and productivity outcomes, helping adapt to the effects of climate change we cannot avoid.

Farmers understand the impacts of climate variability and that unmitigated climate change is a fundamental threat to Australia’s prosperity and primary industries. Pricing carbon pollution is the cheapest, fastest and fairest way of tackling climate change, cutting our carbon pollution and moving to a clean energy future.