Fed up with waiting for the federal government to take action on climate change, the town of 1600 decided to do it themselves.

"When you look at our region you've got everything you need for us to become this century's Hunter Valley," Dr Matthew Nott, an orthopaedic surgeon-turned-climate activist, and founder of the Clean Energy for Eternity movement, said.

"We've got wave and tide resources, we've got a brilliant solar resource, we've got a fantastic wind resource on the Monaro, we've got the Snowy Hydro, we've got biomass from the dairy industry so we have all the ingredients to set ourselves up as a powerhouse of renewable energy in south-eastern NSW."

In Tathra, the roofs now glisten like fat black beetles in the sun.

In a year, the town managed to fund and build a $100,000 community solar farm that supplies about a third of the power to the town's sewage works.

The money saved is reinvested by their local council into more solar panels for community buildings to reach their target of 50 per cent renewable energy by 2020.

"What we're trying to do is demonstrate to our politicians that this community wants solutions to climate change," Dr Nott said.

Their community solar farm does just that: the word "imagine" is spelled out in solar panels.

Even visible on Google Earth, Dr Nott said the only one who seems to have missed the memo is their federal representative.

"A $100,000 community infrastructure project demonstrates that people are really keen to see some change but unfortunately that willingness and desire to change is falling on deaf ears at the moment," Dr Nott said.

"We desperately need leadership. We look to the ACT for leadership now, we're not looking to the federal government, we're not looking to our local member.

Dr Nott said on the one hand the community has a very large threat but on the other hand an enormous opportunity by tackling that threat.

"The previous incumbent Mike Kelly was very in tune with that and we're not getting the same response from Peter Hendy," Dr Nott said.