THE NSW Nationals have voted down a motion which called on the party to recognise that climate change is impacted by human activity.
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The motion was put forward at the annual conference by the Boggabri Nationals and branch chair Pat Murphy said the motion wasn't intended to be divisive.
"We know it's a contentious issue and we tried to take a soft approach to it," Mr Murphy said.
"We wanted to take the emotion out of it and come to a consensus, so we have a starting point. Once we've got that, we can take a risk-based approach towards its impacts.
"It was defeated and there's the beauty of a grassroots party. Everyone's opinion counts."
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The motion also called for the party to put in place economic solutions to protect regional areas from climate change and allow them to "take advantage of the associated economic opportunities".
After the motion was defeated, Mr Murphy wrote up an urgency motion, which aimed to achieved a similar goal - for farmers to profit from battling climate change.
The motion, which was approved, called for a rebate program for farmers who use smart farming practise to store carbon in their soil.
"It's well known that storing carbon in your soil is good for it," Mr Murphy said.
"There are already a lot of sustainable practise in place that do this, such as minimum tilting, crop rotation and different grazing techniques.
"If farmers were paid for the carbon they're offsetting by storing it in their soil, that would create a passive income stream."
Mr Murphy said passive income streams for carbon soil offsets would help both farmers and regional communities through difficult times such as drought
"It's not going to be the silver bullet, but it'll be a strand in the plaited belt," he said.
"It would have a knock on effect, with more money floating around. Our branch is really excited about this if it can be developed properly."