But the Indigo Shire Youth for Climate Action also has much larger aspirations in their sights after holding the North East Youth Climate Summit last month.

Ali Thwaites, among the Beechworth locals who help co-ordinate ISYCA, said 30 youth aged 12 to 30 took part, developing action plans.

"There was a group of students from Rutherglen High School who had an action plan around getting students in their school much more engaged with local First Nations people," she said.

"A group in Mount Beauty were looking at running some sort of community sustainability festival and a group in Wodonga want their council to declare a climate emergency.

"Top five concerns were not only environmental; there were social concerns including discrimination and racism, sexism and LGBTQIA+ discrimination."

Ms Thwaites said it was eye-opening for youth to calculate their personal eco-footprints, "working out how many worlds we would need if everyone lived like them".

"Most of them were in the range of three planets that we would need to live sustainably if the whole world was living like them ... a couple were in the five planets, which is the Australian average," she said.

"Australia's got the fourth-highest footprint scores in the world, higher than countries like the United States and the U.K. and almost double New Zealand, per capita.

"As individuals, we live incredibly resource-intensive lives and creating a lot of waste.

"Participants chose things they could do in their personal lives to reduce their footprints."

The summit used the 'Youth Leading the World' framework developed by OzGreen, which Ms Thwaites became involved in as a school student in Albury.

The summit was supported by DELWP and councils including Indigo Shire; their involvement was one three recommendations ISYCA put to them in 2020.

"The council integrated our wording around consulting with young people and First Nations people into their climate emergency strategic action plan," Ms Thwaites said.

"Although we started as a group in Indigo Shire, a lot of the work that we've been doing has been across the North East."

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A majority of participants communicated an increase in self confidence and an ability to speak about climate change thanks to the summit.

Ideas for change include more electric vehicle charging stations, lowering the voting age, native plant gardens in schools and community bike stations.