Do the young have the will to make climate change sacrifices?

Domestic political pressure will be the key to bringing about the necessary national resolve to deliver a viable solution at Copenhagen in December.

Young people are the natural agents to apply that political pressure.

Given the current pace of climate negotiations, we are the ones most likely to spend our retirements either under water or on fire.

Indeed, the current Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme contains more exemptions than it does regulations.

The challenge will be for us to take our good intentions and channel them into more than just flowery rhetoric.

The challenge will be for us to actually make the hard sacrifices.

Young people are the most powerful catalyst for change in society. But only when they want to be.

Change is not always forthcoming even from our own ranks. The fact that there are 14 groups with more than five million members opposing the new Facebook layout shows this.

Gandhi said "you must be the change you wish to see in the world". The uncomfortable message is that if you are not part of the solution in every choice you make, you are part of the problem.

But before I'm accused of pigeon-holing a movement, let me acknowledge that any cross-section of society has a diversity of views and behaviour.

But the question remains: collectively, do young people really have the necessary will to be the change they want to see when it comes to climate change? Or do we just say we do?

We have a long path ahead of us. A path that is crucially important.

It is about time my generation stopped simply "talking the talk" and started "walking the talk" when it comes to climate change. Only then can we really hope to make a difference.