The floods are driving the climate at the heart of Germany’s election

Two months before polling day, the floods that swept through western Germany this week have sparked a climate change at the heart of Germany’s election.

Many political parties in Germany have acknowledged that climate change is the cause of the disaster that has left 103 people dead and devastated towns and villages in two countries.

This could be a huge boost for the Greens, who this week will be the biggest losers in the September vote. Their powerful suit – focusing on climate change and promoting all that the government finds to be avoided – suddenly began to gain momentum.

In the meantime, they have diligently learned that “I told you so”. The party’s fellow leader, Robert Habeck, did not visit flood-prone areas, telling German newspaper Spiegel that “oppressive politicians only move in places like this”.

“It is illegal to campaign on a day like today,” he said on Thursday when all the damage was done.

But it is clear that a new interest in climate hazards and their connection to the tropical planet could provide much-needed encouragement to aspiring Greens chancellor Annalena Baerbock. They may also be distracted by the mistakes they have made.

The 40-year-old MP has been tying the knot recently due to errors in his CV, he says he wrote in a book he published last month and was late in reporting to parliament.

“They will be able to get information now and [Greens’] “Environmental efficiency,” Karl-Rudolf Korte, a political scientist at the University of Duisburg-Essen, told German television. ” a new way of motivating voters. ”

State spokeswoman Martina Fietz made it clear that officials see climate change as a factor in flooding. “Similarly, warming of the climate leads to an increase in so-called extreme weather events such as hurricanes, heavy rains and hurricanes,” he said. In Germany, temperatures have already risen by two degrees since history began, he said.

On the other hand, climate change could be a challenge for Armin Laschet, who wants to choose a chancellor from the center-right CDU / CSU. As governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, one of Germany’s largest corporations, he strongly opposes other parts of Green, saying it could jeopardize the country as an industrial power.

On Thursday, he was caught in the back, frustrated by a TV interviewer when asked if Germany should now take a more aggressive approach to tackling the climate crisis. “Sorry lady, you are not changing your mind for a date like today,” she said.

However, he added that Germany must tackle climate change. “We need to get down to speed on a non-political path,” he said on Friday.

Laschet was also able to write an important note to his two rivals, Baerbock and Olaf Scholz, finance minister and chancellor of the Social Democratic Party. They were on vacation when the floods occurred: they were not, and they hurried to see the worst-affected areas.

Laschet promised to reimburse those who were left homeless, expressed sympathy for those affected by their families and thanked the emergency services, in what appeared to be a reference to him as a caretaker and a “Landesvater”, or father.

Laschet could be politically motivated by a lack of self-confidence due to the flood, Korte said. “We have to anticipate new challenges,” he said, “and we will rely heavily on people or parties with good ideas to protect us from what might happen.” This could benefit the CDU / CSU, which has ruled Germany for 50 years over the past 70 years, and hurt Baerbock, who has no official knowledge.

If the floods affect the German campaign, it will not be the first time. Experts say the massive flooding of the Elbe River in August 2002 affected the election that year and ensured the victory of the Social Democratic chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

He ran there, wearing rubber boots, walking in the mud, and then promised great help to the worst-affected areas. Unlike his colleague Edmund Stoiber, a CDU / CSU representative, did not mention his vacation on the North Sea island of Juist and ended up losing.

“I didn’t want to campaign with this natural disaster,” Stoiber said later – even though he had visited flooded areas.

The climate has also been politically motivated in recent years. The long dry season that Germany experienced in 2018, with little rain and fields and tropical rain forests, boosted the Greens’ popularity and increased their steady rise in voting: by November 2018 they were 22 years old, up 8.9 percent in the Bundestag election. 2017.

Then in May 2019 they got 20.5% of the vote in the European Parliament – their best results so far.

While no one wants to make political weeds out of trouble, there will be some in the Greens secretly hoping that the 2018 heat could be a shock after the 2021 floods.