Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd lashed opposition climate change skeptics on Friday ahead of next month's Copenhagen summit.

In a lengthy address to Sydney's Lowy Institute on Friday, Rudd declared the skeptics to be gamblers who were betting their grandchildren's future away.

"These do-nothing climate change skeptics are prepared to destroy our children's future," Rudd said.

He applied plenty of pressure to Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull in the terse and strongly worded speech.

"The do-nothing climate change skeptics are still alive and well in the coalition," Rudd said.

Many in the coalition and elsewhere have said Australia should wait to pass climate change legislation until after the Copenhagen negotiations in December.

The prime minister rejected the suggestion outright.

"The argument that we must not act until others do is an argument that has been used by political cowards since time immemorial, both of the left and the right.

"They are reckless gamblers who are betting all our futures on their arrogant assumption that their intuitions should triumph over the evidence," he said.

Rudd issued a call for action, declaring there was no more time to waste if climate change was to be tackled effectively.