Steinmeier: Alps face growing landslide risk as climate change expands

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called for more to be done to protect people in the European Alps from landslides and mudslides driven by climate change.

Steinmeier said on Tuesday such events did not always have to reach the scale seen recently in Nepal or last year in Blatten in Switzerland - but that they would become more frequent in future.

Earlier in the day, the German president visited the Stubai Glacier in Tyrol together with his counterparts from Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, where glaciologists explained the effects of climate change on the glacier.

The German-speaking heads of state of Europe meet once a year in one of their countries - this time in Austria.

The local signs of global warming were alarming and demanded action, Steinmeier said afterwards.

He said everything possible must be done to limit global warming. In the short term, it was necessary to define precisely where the dangers were greatest and to ensure early warning systems were in place for local populations, he added.

There is no justification for pushing the fight against climate change "to the back of the political agenda," Steinmeier said.