As students from around the globe prepare to strike for action on climate change on Friday, a local council in northern Victoria has asked its youth to engage in a different way.

Greater Shepparton City Council has called on young people in the municipality to draft a statement, to influence environmental decisions and drive the development of new policies in the region.

It is the first Victorian council to adopt this kind of initiative.

The aim of the statement is to inform leaders in the areas of the environment, including Council Catchment Management Authority, State and Federal Governments and World Environmental Forums, of the opinions of the youth of Greater Shepparton as to what needs to change to better manage the environment.

Students gathered outside Melbourne's Parliament House as part of a national day of action on climate change on November 30, 2018. ( ABC News: Andie Noonan )

Chief executive, Peter Harriott, ignited the movement and admitted all levels of government had been complacent when it came to acting on climate change in the past.

"We're asking the youth of Shepparton to tell leaders who work in the area of environment what we've been doing wrong and how we can improve on that," he said.

"We haven't done a very good job over the past century or so.

"Leadership has mostly been from the older age group when it comes to the environment and, because the youth are obviously going to be the future and they're going to live in the future, why shouldn't they have ideas and tell us how we should run the environment going forward?"

What is the youth calling for?

Students began submitting their ideas last week and have shared the initiative with their peers.

Mooroopna secondary student, Jess Elred, 16, worried Greater Shepparton City Council was somewhat sceptical about moving towards a renewable electricity system.

"Shepparton has always acknowledged that climate change is an issue but it's not so much the acknowledgement that's the issue, we don't put enough things into action," she said.

"I'd like to see Shepparton go entirely carbon-neutral, I think we have the resources here, we have the sun, so we can use solar energy."

Sterling McKenzie, 17, said he too would like to see Shepparton go carbon-free.

"Climate change is real, we're experiencing it right now, and I want to make sure my kids are safe in the future," he said.

"Shepparton is, in the scheme of things, just a very small place, but I do believe if we don't set our goals high and if we don't reach them, then what's the point?"

The students welcomed the initiative and said it was refreshing to see government leaders embrace young people's ideas.

Jess said the issue was not that young people were disengaged in politics, but rather that young people felt like their concerns too often fell on deaf ears.

"Our government has only just started listening to us because we had a strike of multiple students who decided enough is enough and we need to start doing something," she said.

"It saddens me that it had come to that before we started getting any sort of voice."

She hoped the statement would, in part, encourage the Federal Government to stop politicising the issue.

"I'm very happy that this is happening," Jess said.

"I think it's great that we can tackle the issue politically and not just get too aggressive about it.

"I think that we need to actually work together towards it.

"If we get stuck on all the politics of arguing about it, like the people in Canberra seem to be doing, we will never get anywhere. I think this policy will really help us get there."

Initiative receives the green light from local MP

Independent Member for Shepparton, Suzanna Sheed, welcomed the initiative and hoped to present her parliamentary colleagues with the statement, once it is handed down in August.

She said she also supported the young people who planned to leave school and strike for action on climate change tomorrow.

"I support young people becoming more interested in politics generally," she said.

"I think what city council's done is create a stepping stone for a group of young people … to step in to that space because climate change is very political."

Australia is moving rapidly towards a renewable electricity system, with a planned 11 gigawatts of new solar and wind to be introduced over the next two years.

Ms Sheed said the country was in the middle of a transition phase but said the Greater Shepparton community was very much embracing new forms of energy.

While wind farms must be approved by Victoria's Planning Minister, solar farm approvals fall to local governments. ( ABC News: Jonathon Gul )

"I think the greater region has a lot of opportunity for solar … I've been very concerned along with a whole lot of other people that we don't put solar farms on the modernised irrigation footprint," she said.

Since February last year, the Victorian Minister for Planning had called in the applications for four solar developments in the region to determine whether planning permits could be granted for the projects at Tallygaroopna, Congupna, Lemnos, and Tatura East.

"In those circumstances we need to be very careful about where the opportunities are for high value agricultural development, but also be mindful of the fact that we really want to see more renewable energy in our region and really it's just a matter of finding the right spots and these are projects that do provide jobs and investment — particularly when they're being booked," Ms Sheed said.

She agreed with the students, arguing the Federal Government had ignored the issue for too long.

"There's such a lack of direction in terms of our future climate change policies in relation to energy, in relation to coal, so many things that are being debated with no clarity around them," Ms Sheed said.

"I think there is a real opportunity for young people to start understanding, doing work on, and having projects about these sorts of things and coming to their own views and then lobbying governments on what they think is important."

The statement, along with a promotional video, will be presented to local, state and federal environmental leaders in August.