BALI, Indonesia - Never before have so many people converged to try to save the planet from global warming.
More than 10,000 of them have jetted into this Indonesian resort island, from government ministers to Nobel laureates to drought-stricken farmers.
Critics say they're contributing to the very problem they aim to solve.
Chris Goodall, author of the book "How to Live a Low-Carbon Life," says nobody denies it's an important event.
However, "huge numbers of people are going, and their emissions are probably going to be greater than a small African country."
Interest in climate change is at an all-time high after former U.S. vice-president Al Gore and a team of UN scientists won the Nobel Peace Prize.
They were honoured for highlighting the dangers of rising temperatures, melting polar ice, worsening droughts and floods and lengthening heat waves.
The pace is only expected to pick up, prompting some to ask if the issue is creating a "cure" industry as groups claim a stake in efforts to curb global warming.
No, says Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Climate Change Conference.
"Wherever you held it, people would still have to travel to get there."
The UN estimates 42,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and other pollutants will be pumped into the atmosphere during the 12-day conference in Bali.
Most of it will come from plane flights, but also from waste and electricity used by air conditioners at five-star hotels lining palm-fringed beaches.
If correct, Goodall said, that's equivalent to what a western city of 1.5 million people, like Marseilles, France, would emit in a day. He believes the real figure will be twice that.
Organizers said they're doing everything possible to offset the effects.
Host Indonesia, which has one of the fastest rates of deforestation in the world, averaging 300 football fields an hour, said it had planted 79 million trees across the archipelago nation in the last few weeks.
Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar says the aim is not just to make it a carbon neutral event, but a positive one.
In largely symbolic gestures, 200 bright yellow mountain bikes are being offered to participants so they can pedal around the heavily guarded conference site.
Also, recycled paper is being used for the reams of documents being handed out. Bins separating plastic and paper dot hallways - a rare sight in a country where formal recycling is virtually nonexistent.
Yet SUVs, taxis and other cars sit in long lines at the gates to the site, spewing out exhaust as they wait to get through security checkpoints.
Side trips, from scuba diving to shopping, are being offered at hotels. Indonesia's tourism ministry hopes to showcase its remaining forests, island jewels and bustling metropolises by providing expense-paid junkets.
Optimists hope the meeting will inaugurate a two-year process of intensified negotiations on a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
That deal required signatories to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average five per cent below 1990 levels.
But no-one expects concrete results here, with closed-door talks expected to be a battle over language and nuance.
In all, 190 countries, including Canada, are represented.
The United States has sent more than 100 delegates and all 27 countries of the European Union sent national teams, with Germany bringing 70 people and France 50.
Non-governmental organizations also are attending, from groups advocating the rights of indigenous people to those seeking to protect rapidly dwindling forests.
Groups like Oxfam and CARE, which provide food and other humanitarian aid for the hungry, also are here.
And there are those with something to sell, including technology to produce pure drinking water and businesses ready to capitalize on future carbon trading markets.
