Climate change front and center at UN summit

The first item on the long list of issues to be addressed at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week: Climate change.

On Tuesday President Barack Obama will address a group of world leaders at the U.N. Climate Summit, a one-day meeting hosted by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and open to leaders of all 193 U.N. member states, though not all will attend, plus members of the private sector.

The event -- Obama's first stop in a busy week at the General Assembly -- offers Obama a chance to shift the conversation away from the threat posed by ISIS, Ebola, and other national security matters and focus on an issue where he can tout accomplishments.

In 2013, Obama unveiled several executive actions aimed at reducing carbon emissions and combating climate change, and at Tuesday's summit, White House officials say, the president will highlight the need for the international community to come up with a plan with the same aim.

Obama 'will call on other leaders to work towards a strong global framework to cut emissions' at the summit, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters.

Actions taken so far

In June 2013, Obama announced a plan to cut carbon pollution, including directing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish new emission standards for active coal plants in the United States, and working with other countries including China and India -- two of the world's top emitters of greenhouse gases -- to establish new plans for addressing pollution globally.

The plan included many executive actions -- things that don't need approval from Congress, such as new standards for coal plants -- that were controversial.

A year later, in June, 2014, the EPA proposed a new plan designed to cut carbon emissions by 30 percent by the year 2030. That plan has become a popular subject in several Senate races this year, including West Virginia and Kentucky.

Still to be done

Environmental activists tell CNN they expect the president to make a strong call for action and announce some smaller initiatives to fight climate change in his speech on Tuesday. White House officials echoed that plan on Monday.

'The president will announce a suite of planned tools that will harness the unique scientific and technological capabilities of the United States to help vulnerable populations around the world strengthen their climate resilience,' Earnest told reporters on Monday.

For the environmental community, the next big frontier to tackle is methane emissions -- different from carbon emissions but, environmentalists say, just as important in the fight against climate change.

'For us the big next steps include making a decision to address methane pollution from the oil and gas sector,' said John Coequyt, director of the international climate campaign at the Sierra Club, one of the country's oldest environmental organizations. 'That's one of the biggest unresolved pieces.'

Polling

A demonstration in New York on Sunday featuring appearances from U.N. leader Ban and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, among others, turned out tens of thousands of supporters, but polling indicates that many Americans do not list addressing climate change as an issue they believe should be a top priority for the president and Congress.

A Pew research poll conducted earlier this year found that 29 percent of respondents listed 'dealing with global warming' as a top policy priority -- and that number has remained virtually unchanged since Obama took office in 2009.

And a Gallup poll conducted in March 2014, found that a little under a fourth of Americans -- 24 percent -- list climate change as a national problem that they worry about 'a great deal.'

However, when it comes to addressing climate change, polling indicates most Americans back action. A Gallup poll from June found that 65 percent of those surveyed support the government tightening pollution regulations on businesses.