WOOL growers want to "ride on the back" of Australia's emissions trading scheme by claiming their clip as a carbon credit.

Growers made the call following the Federal Government's decision to back the plantation industry's bid to claim harvested trees as carbon credits.

WoolProducers Australia executive director Greg Weller said if the plantation industry succeeded in gaining credits for timber, then wool growers had every right to claim credit for the carbon stored in their clips.

"If a precedent is to be set for wood, then we'd want to see consistency from the (Federal) Government in recognising the other (carbon) stores such as wool and cotton," Mr Weller said.

The international Kyoto protocol on carbon accounting currently counts harvested trees as an emission, not a credit.

However, the Federal Government stated in its recently released Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Green Paper that it would: "increase its efforts to change the international climate framework" to allow harvested timber to be counted as a carbon sink.

Victorian Greenhouse in Agriculture project leader Richard Eckard said if harvested timber was to be counted as a carbon credit then wool, cotton and even sugar-cane refuse used in fibre-board should also be counted as credits.

"Wool is 45.2 per cent carbon, so I think if harvested wood products are recognised, then agriculture should take a serious look at what other sectors store carbon," Dr Eckard said.

"Any carbon that's produced as a result of photosynthesis should be counted as a carbon credit if it persists for a reasonable amount of time."

Dr Eckard said while the quantity of carbon in an individual wool grower's clip was not huge, there was obviously a significant quantity in the national clip.

Mr Weller said WoolProducers had discussed the issue with the Government, and argued that if harvested timber was to be included in an emissions trading scheme then so should wool.

Hamilton wool grower and Climate Institute chairman Mark Wootton, who has just sold 86 bales of "carbon neutral" wool, said he had been thinking about the issue of wool as a carbon sink for some time.

"I think it should be acknowledged - that there's a carbon offset in wool. From an equity point of view I can't see why not," he said.

Mr Wootton also said the wool industry could try to pursue the issue in its marketing campaign.

However, he said questions still remained on how wool stacked up against synthetics, when it came to their carbon footprints.