Despite Coalition opposition, the Senate has passed with amendments the Government's carbon farming legislation and a bill to underpin the nation's carbon registry.
With Parliament scheduled to debate the Carbon Farming bill today, Norton Rose climate lawyer Elisa de Wit cautions that businesses still lack crucial information on how the scheme will operate.
Sequestration projects by farmers and foresters would receive a huge boost under changes to the Carbon Farming Initiative proposed today by Professor Ross Garnaut, who wants it linked with the mooted price regime but warns it won't deliver cut-price carbon to companies.
Farmers are still ambivalent about a price on carbon, but if the Gillard Government doesn't introduce a pricing mechanism then taxpayers should fund the purchase of farm-based credits, the National Farmers Federation says.
With New Zealand less than three weeks away from a major expansion of its trading regime, ASX-listed carbon forest sink company CO2 Group today announced a partnership with two NZ businesses that will hold trading rights to five million NZ emission units by the end of the year.
