Radio Waatea and The Daily Blog featured the Pacific and climate change on their daily live Fifth Estate programme tonight.

Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury spoke to a panel, including Labour spokesman on Pacific affairs Sua William Sio who was stranded at Tarawa on a fact-finding mission to Kiribati.

Sua spoke about the “fighting spirit” of Pacific islanders trying to sustain life in the face of the reality of climate change and called for a better United Nations framework for Pacific people impacted on by the dramatic changes as a result of global warming.

Many of the speakers talked about New Zealand needing to accept Pacific climate change migrations, adopt humanitarian policies and tackle the issue of sovereignty of their communities.

“We have to recognise and have a serious discussion about people from the vulnerable climate change frontline states who are overstayers in New Zealand because I now recognise that some of them, depending on which islands they belong to, cannot go back to those islands,” said Sua.

“You can’t be an overstayer if you have got nowhere to go back to,” said Bradbury.

In the studio for the programme were:

International refugee Michael Timmins, a lawyer who has worked internationally with NGOs and the UN refugee agency UNHCR

Professor David Robie, director of AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre

On the phone from Samoa: Ötara-Papatoetoe Local Board Councillor Efeso Collins

And on Skype live from Kiribati as part of his fact-finding mission in the Pacific: Labour Party Spokesperson on Pacific Affairs and Pacific Climate Change Sua William Sio

• Watch Fifth Estate and climate change on YouTube
• Discussion plus at The Daily Blog