The deal follows years of failed attempts to impose legally-binding, international cuts on emerging giants, such as China and India.
The developed world had already accepted formal targets under a first phase of the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out at the end of next year, although the United States had never ratified its commitment.
After days of emotional debate, the chairwoman of the United Nations climate talks urged delegates to approve four packages, which have legal force.
"We came here with plan A, and we have concluded this meeting with plan A to save one planet for the future of our children and our grandchildren to come," South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said.
"We have made history," she said, bringing the hammer down on more than two weeks of sometimes fractious talks in the South African port of Durban, the longest in two decades of U.N. climate talks.
The deal was welcomed by Brazil, one of the globe's emerging economic powers.
"I am relieved we have what we came here to get. We have a robust outcome, an excellent text about a new phase in the international fight against climate change. It clearly points to action," said Brazil's climate envoy Luiz Alberto Figueiredo. Read the full report here.
Source: by Jon Herskovitz and Nina Chestney, Reuters, Durban.
