Obama Declares: 'We've Transformed the United States Into the Global Leader in

Australia's foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said the agreement involving all nations and trading competitors could give Australia "comfort" to take tougher action to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

"Britain is already leading the way in work to cut emissions and help less developed countries cut theirs - and this global deal now means that the whole world has signed to play its part in halting climate change".

Speaking from the White House on an unseasonably warm December day hours after negotiators approved the agreement, Obama called it a testament to American leadership that will help slow climate change. The agreement required developed countries to extend such support, while encouraging other countries to provide it voluntarily.

The agreement seeks to curb global temperatures at 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, between now and 2100, according to various media reports.

The accord sets a goal of limiting average warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures - and of striving for a limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) if possible. "France calls upon you to adopt the first universal agreement on climate".

None of the top Republican presidential candidates nor Republican leaders in Congress had commented on the deal on as of 6pm Eastern (1100 GMT) Saturday. Those countries' greenhouse gas emissions must represent 55% of the world's total. "I believe this will continue because I just personally can not believe that any person who doesn't understand the science and isn't prepared to do for the next generation what we did here today and follow through on it can not and will not be elected president of the United States".

The agreement, Coloma, said was reached after nearly two weeks of painstaking consensus building and convergence around five major points, namely: a global temperature goal of 1.5 degrees; the inclusion of human rights as its bedrock principle; the emphasis on ecosystem integrity; the commitment of support in finance, technology and capacity building for all adaptation and mitigation efforts; and the inclusion of a loss and damage article that would ensure the recovery, restoration and resilience of communities, livelihoods and ecosystems.

But those pledges are not enough to achieve the goals in the accord, meaning countries will need to cut much more to meet the target. She thanked French President Francois Hollande for preparing the climate change conference.

"And that was the foundation for success in Paris", the president said. "This deal alone won't dig us out of the hole we're in".

Greenpeace International's executive director Kumi Naidoo said the deal puts the fossil-fuel industry on the wrong side of history.

Still, if the more than 190 nations gathered in Paris agree to the accord, it would be a breakthrough in climate negotiations.

"Too many people have spent their careers pretending that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by shadowy environmental groups and Machiavellian research scientists", Grijalva said. The United States was the world's largest emitter when the Kyoto Protocol was adopted but now is the second-largest.