IT would be hard to dream up two worse approaches to reducing carbon emissions than Kevin Rudd's and Tony Abbott's.

The PM's emissions trading scheme almost completely compensates polluters, undermining the entire point of the scheme.

Tony Abbott's approach allows polluters to continue polluting for free and ignores the fact some power station owners aim only to run their stations into the ground.

Therefore his plan does not force a reduction in carbon pollution.

Both say their plan will cut emissions but neither will and neither truly aims to.

Australian farmers in particular will continue to be affected by a warming and drying climate as politicians around the world swim in a swamp of self-interest.

However, both approaches offer farmers direct financial benefit.

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, complete with Coalition amendments, provides dollars for protecting native vegetation which could be cleared, as well as for allowing vegetation to regrow on land cleared after 1990.

It could also mean dollars for sequestration on grazing and cropping land without the risk of having to hand back the money should a bushfire release the carbon.

But the negative is the incentive to convert farmland to plantation - this has the potential to be the next managed investment scheme-style disaster for rural Australia.

The Abbott plan, while certainly not "bad for farmers" as Agriculture Minister Tony Burke claimed in Parliament this week, is not quite as financially attractive as the CPRS.

In measurable financial terms, farmers will be better off if the Rudd scheme gets up.

But neither side of politics should be proud of its offering.