“Why didn’t the sirens wail on the roofs?”: political framing competition in the German parliament following the 2021 floods

While a burgeoning literature has investigated the effects of extreme weather events on citizens’ climate attitudes and voting behaviour, politicians’ reactions to such events mostly remain a black box. Our mixed-methods analysis of plenary debates following the 2021 floods in Germany focuses on the framing competition in the Bundestag and its relationship to legislators’ ideology and constituency linkages. While climate change as a cause of the floods is barely discussed, far-right legislators attempt to capitalise on them by blaming governmental and institutional failures in dealing with the tragedy. Climate change adaptation is present in the discourse of most mainstream parties, but advocating for climate change mitigation is a strategy only adopted by the Greens. Our analyses also indicate that legislators react differently depending on their districts’ exposure to floods.