You know about the city of Venice and the famous canals? The place every woman finds romantic? The city is flooded and in a dire situation as water levels rise. Tourists still visit though and some of the politicians refuse to see the problem even as they stand in water.

Politicians from the regional council’s majority rightwing parties: the League, Brothers of Italy and Forza Italia, rejected amendments to fight the climate crisis in the 2020 budget that were proposed by the centre-left Democratic party. Sharing pictures of the room as water entered, Andrea Zanoni, the Democratic party’s deputy chairman of the council’s environment committee, wrote on Facebook: “Ironically, the chamber was flooded two minutes after the majority parties rejected our proposals to tackle climate change.”

“There is no more meaningful image than a chamber being flooded, causing the representatives of the Venetian people to flee, to illustrate all the inconsistency and political nullity of a current miserable administrative", Zanoni said. Venice has been hit by recurrent flooding since last Tuesday, with 70% of the lagoon city engulfed on Friday morning as the acqua alta, or high water, level reached 1.54 metres amid heavy downpours. The damage and casualties are still piling up and Venice experienced its worst flooding since 1966.