DURBAN, South Africa -- Congressional Democrats say the deal struck early yesterday by climate negotiators here offers a reminder that the world must act on global warming, despite disagreement in Washington over efforts to curb heat-trapping gases.

In the Durban agreement, countries agreed to negotiate a new climate change deal by 2015 to take force by 2020. It would assign emissions-reduction responsibilities to all major emitters, not developed countries only.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who led the push on Capitol Hill for a Senate cap-and-trade bill in 2009 and 2010, said the inclusion of major developing countries in the deal would help lay the groundwork for climate legislation at home.

"It removes two stumbling blocks that have led to political paralysis here at home because it underscores we can't tackle this challenge without multilateralism and trust," he said.

Kerry also commended the Conference of the Parties (COP) for setting up the Green Climate Change Fund to help finance adaptation and mitigation projects in developing countries, calling it "a keystone to climate financing that will mobilize and leverage both public and private sector support."

Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said, "I am pleased that the nations meeting in Durban have agreed to develop a legally binding commitment that applies to all countries."

The COP agreement calls for the establishment of a "a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change applicable to all parties."

The deal studiously avoids calling for "legally binding" targets in large part because the United States refused to accept that language unless it explicitly applied to major developing emitters like China and India, which have not agreed to binding targets. The battle over what form the treaty will take is left for another day.

Boxer said that she would continue to push for domestic policies that reduce emissions.

"I will continue to work with my colleagues in the Senate to build consensus to address this critical problem here at home," she said.

On the House side, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who sent a staffer to the talks at the last minute, used a sports analogy.

"These negotiations went into double overtime to find a way to ensure it's not game over for the planet, and it appears a last-second score saved the day again," he said. "But the planet can't afford these same kind of last-ditch efforts, when scientists say we have scant time left to avoid the worst effects of global warming."

He noted that Republican presidential primary contenders are now united in saying the science is not settled on man-made climate change.

The Senate's most vocal climate skeptic, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), declined to comment on the agreement. Inhofe sent a withering video message to Durban earlier last week, heralding the "complete collapse of the global warming movement and the failure of the Kyoto process."

The Durban agreement breathed new life into the Kyoto Protocol by prompting the European Union and some others to pledge a second emissions-reduction commitment period under the treaty. Still, Matt Dempsey, a spokesman for Inhofe, said "nothing has changed from this outcome."

Dempsey shrugged off a question about the COP's decision to adopt a new emissions-reduction agreement.

"They said the same thing after Copenhagen about some kind of agreement, and we know where that is today," he said.