Some 10,000 conferees, activists and journalists from nearly 190 countries gathered on the resort island of Bali for two weeks of UN-led talks that follow a series of scientific reports this year, concluding that the world has the technology to slow global warming, but must act immediately.

The Bali meeting will be the first major climate change conference since former Vice-President Al Gore — due to arrive next week — and a UN scientific council won the Nobel Peace Prize in October for their environmental work, fueling the growing sense of urgency as ice-caps melt, oceans rise and extreme weather increases.

“The eyes of the world are upon you. There is a huge responsibility for Bali to deliver,” said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the conference. “The world now expects a quantum leap forward.”

The immediate aim of the Bali conference will be to launch negotiations toward a pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol on global warming when it expires at the end of 2012, and set an agenda for the talks and a deadline. The UN says such an agreement should be concluded by 2009 in order to have a system in place in time.

The original treaty, signed by almost all of the world’s nations in 1992, set voluntary goals for curbing the emission of greenhouse gases, which mostly come from burning fossil fuels and forests, and which have been linked by scientists to global warming. But few of those goals have been met.

A main thrust will be to draw the US, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, into the process. Washington did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, arguing that mandatory cuts in emissions would harm the economy and calling into question the veracity of global warming science.

Speakers on Monday said the world had more to lose by inaction than by taking some of the costly steps needed to cut emissions.

“One of the stumbling blocks so far has been the fear of economic hardship,” said Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar, the host of the Bali meeting. “Though the cost will be significant... it’s insignificant compared to the damage that uncontrolled climate change will wreak.”

Among the most contentious issues ahead will be whether emission cuts should be mandatory or voluntary, as the US favours. Also to be tackled will be to what extent up-and-coming economies like China and India will have to rein in their skyrocketing emissions, and how to help the world’s poorest countries adapt to a worsening climate.