There's a flood of coverage about the Monday UN climate summit here in NYC, which is kicking off the annual gathering of the UN General Assembly. Here are a few highlights from the global press:

Kim Chipman, Bloomberg News: "A new global commitment to cut greenhouse-gas emissions is urgently needed if the world hopes to avert the most dire affects of human-caused climate change, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.

"'The message is quite simple,' Ban said today at a special UN session on climate change in New York. 'We know enough to act. If we don't act now, the impact of climate change will be devastating.'"

Chris Cermak, Bangkok Post: "Industrialised countries must be at the heart of all attempts to tackle climate change and cut greenhouse-gas emissions, world leaders said during a one-day conference Monday at the United Nations...'It is not a question of choice between growth and protecting our world. We need clean growth,' said French President Nicolas Sarkozy. 'A new economy must be invented.'"

Kevin Yamamura, The Sacramento Bee: "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urged international leaders to reach a new climate change agreement that includes developing and wealthy nations in a Monday address at the United Nations.

"The Republican governor...portrayed California as a breeding ground for environmental technologies for the rest of the world, suggesting that the state will bring down costs enough to help poor nations switch to clean alternatives. His appearance was believed to be the first U.N. address by a sitting U.S. governor.

"Environmentalists saw Schwarzenegger as upstaging President Bush, who has faced international criticism for resisting mandatory greenhouse gas reductions."

Gulf News: "It would be easy to dismiss the climate change summit at the United Nations. There have been so many conferences, meetings, discussions and still the planet gets warmer. It would be easy to ignore the summit as just another photo-opportunity. Easy but wrong.

"The UN is taking a leading role in climate change and demanding tougher action to combat it...UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon organised the summit to build political momentum towards launching negotiations later this year for deep cutbacks in emissions of carbon dioxide and other man-made gases blamed for global warming. This summit looks ahead to December's annual climate treaty conference in Bali, Indonesia, when the Europeans, Japanese and others hope to initiate talks for an emissions reduction agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol in 2012."