Filmmaker slams corporates for delay tactics on climate change

Transcript

A New Zealand investigative documentary maker says efforts to get international treaties on climate change are being used as a distraction and delaying tactic by corporate lobbyists.

Alister Barry's film 'Hot Air' critiques climate change politics and the failure of New Zealand politicians and the media to address this issue.

Alister Barry spoke with Leilani Momoisea about what lessons Pacific nations might be able to take away from the documentary.

ALISTER BARRY: Actions have to be taken at a national level not so much at an international level. In fact it is possible to see all that energy that has been put into trying to get international agreements negotiated as a diversion, funded and promoted by the carbon barons of this world. Actually trying to get international treaties has been a distraction and a delaying, well a delaying tactic. Like it or not the world is divided up into nation states which are capable of dealing with the activities that go on within their country, within their nation. The problem becomes manageable, politically manageable if we think about our state and our own political institutions.

LEILANI MOMOISEA: So the problem is that countries are waiting for other countries to do something rather than doing something themselves in a way.

AB: And we can do things at a country level and we must do things at a country level.

LM: The Pacific has always been sort of leading the charge on this, can there be anything that they can do to convince say New Zealand for example to do more? Is New Zealand doing enough?

AB: New Zealand is not doing enough and I would say, one of the things, that could be taken for example at a national level amongst more Pacific states for example which they, diplomatically they can put pressure on the New Zealand Government and say, and demand certain positions to be taken and perhaps extend that into public forum of, publicly criticising the New Zealand Government or the Australian Government for lack of action on specific policies.

LM: When you talked about waiting for international agreements. Is that more just a delaying tactic so that people can do nothing, essentially in the interim?

AB: In my film, the bad guys, the big dynamic in the story I tell is the huge influence of corporate lobbyists and corporate interests on dictating the nature of the debate, the outcome, the policies, the actual nuts and bolts of the policies that have been developed and stopped and modified within New Zealand political context. That to a lesser extent, extends to the smaller Pacific states and the larger Pacific states as well. One could think about Papua New Guinea for example, for heavens sake, you know, huge mining industry, timber too, so there's the deforestation issue. So the power of those corporate lobbyists has to be described, exposed and addressed.