Families Facing Climate Change hosted the forum at Glen Eira Uniting Church for the Higgins by-election which covers some Monash homes in Hughesdale.

Despite promising to show up, Liberal candidate Kelly O'Dwyer failed to complete a questionnaire or attend.

Two stand-out candidates were Clive Hamilton (Greens) and David Collyer (Australian Democrats), who were well versed on climate change and promised "serious action" to tackle the problem.

Fiona Patten (Australian Sex Party) and Joseph Toscano (an independent anarchist) understood less of the science behind climate change but were able to clearly spell out their policies.

Stephen Murphy (an independent climate sceptic) denied climate change was occurring at all. He claimed more investigation was needed.

Peter Brohier (independent) and Steve Raskovy (One Nation) agreed action should be taken but did not have clear policies on the issue.

Isaac Roberts (Liberal Democrats) and John Mulholland (Democratic Labor Party) also failed to attend.

Mr Hamilton, who wrote his first paper on climate change in 1994, said the Greens would cut emissions by 40per cent by 2020 and help those who might suffer in the transition.

Mr Collyer said, given what was currently known about climate change, if nothing was done the results could be "catastrophic" but said even if the research was wrong there was no harm in changing our power source.

He promised to keep an excise tax off alternative fuels and introduce an emissions trading policy that included agriculture.

Mr Murphy would call for more independent research on the topic and said there was "absolutely zero correlation between bushfires and climate change".

He said there had been no principal research on climate change and claimed there had been no mean increase in temperatures since 2002.

"Global warming has ended and we're actually reaching a period of global cooling."

Mr Toscano would "tax the polluters out of existence" and pay for sustainable energy solutions by ending tax exemption and benefits towards churches, private schools and private health care. Ms Patten promised prompt action.

"We've been debating this for many years but it just seems to continue when we really should be taking action. We need to get politicians to look past the political cycle."

FFCC spokeswoman Jane Morton said Mr Hamilton and Mr Collyer were "serious about addressing the climate crisis".

The Higgins by-election is on December5.