Compromise Climate Deal Reached in Copenhagen

President Obama announced late Friday that an "unprecedented breakthrough" had been achieved toward a global agreement to fight climate change.

The deal is not legally binding and was still being drafted, the president said toward the end of the global warming summit attended by representatives of nearly 200 nations in Copenhagen.

Obama said while "meaningful" progress had been made, it will take still more work to forge an accord that is bound by law, the Associated Press reported.

"We have come a long way, but we have much further to go," the president said before leaving Copenhagen for Washington.

The three-page deal was negotiated among the United States, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa. It will extend help to developing nations coping with climate change and get China to explain how it will address the problem, the president said.

The deal fails to commit industrialized or developing nations to firm targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as was hoped for by many attendees.

The president said the compromise agreement was significant because the nations have committed to act individually to fight global warming.

"For the first time in history," Obama said, "all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change."

Any binding international treaty was unlikely to be agreed upon at the Copenhagen summit and could take months, or years, of additional negotiations.