The UN General Assembly convenes at United Nations headquarters in New York next week. As in every year, UNGA is an annual opportunity for heads of state to come to the United Nations to meet each other and address the world.

What distinguishes the UN General Assembly this year is a series of key events and meetings focused on climate change. Of these events and meetings the most high profile is what is known as the UN Climate Action Summit. This will take place on Monday the 23rd of September, and will include top government officials, business leaders, and civil society members bringing to the table concrete action plans to accelerate progress on addressing climate change. Today's episode of the Global Dispatches podcast is dedicated to explaining just what that Climate Action Summit entails and what to expect from this major climate meeting at the United Nations. On the line with me to discuss the significance of this summit and what it hopes to achieve is Cassie Flynn, she is the strategic advisor on climate change in the executive office of the UN Development Program, UNDP. She is the someone who has very much been involved in aspects of planning the summit and in this conversation offers a curtain raiser for the summit itself, and discusses some of the broader expectations for this event. The Climate Action Summit at the UN is the capstone to several climate related events happening at the UN, including a Youth Climate Summit that will feature young leaders from around the world. In this conversation we discuss how these events relate to each other and directly to the Paris Climate Accord. If you have twenty minutes and want to better understand the UN Climate Action Summit, have a listen. This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.