The US House of Representatives have narrowly passed historic legislation to cut pollution blamed for global warming, handing President Barack Obama a major, hard-fought victory.

After hours of bitter debate, lawmakers voted 219-212 to put the US economy under a "cap-and-trade" system for managing carbon emissions in a move its backers said would create jobs and restore shaky US leadership on climate change.

"Just remember these four words for what this legislation means -- jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. Let's vote for jobs," Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi exhorted her colleagues minutes before the vote.

Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner warned the measure would send energy costs skyrocketing and denounced it as "the biggest job-killing bill that has ever been on the floor of the House."

The pitched political battle on how to confront global warming now shifts to the US Senate, where the prospects for action this year are uncertain and where outspoken foes of "cap and trade" wield more clout.

"The House has taken a courageous step toward a safer and cleaner energy future," Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a statement that highlighted the measure's clouded prospect in the upper chamber.

"The bill is not perfect," said the Nevada senator, who vowed to work with the White House "to debate and pass bipartisan and comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation this fall."

The House's "American Clean Energy and Security Act" aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and 83 percent by 2050, create "green" jobs and wean the US economy from oil imports.

The 1,200-page bill, the fruit of months of tough negotiations, would create a "cap-and-trade" system limiting overall pollution from large industrial sources and then allocating and selling pollution permits.

The Democratic-crafted bill would require utilities, by 2020, to get 15 percent of their electricity from renewable resources -- solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass -- and show annual energy savings of five percent from efficiency measures.

The European Union plan calls for getting 20 percent of all electricity from renewable resources by 2020.

Democratic Representative Ed Markey, a lead author of the measure, called it "the most important energy and environment bill in our nation's history" and proclaimed "today we are saying clean energy will be the American-made solution."

Obama, who spent part of the day courting wavering lawmakers, said as he met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel hours before the vote that he hoped the United States was reasserting its role after letting Europe lead for years.

"The United States, over the last several years, has not been where we need to be. We're not going to get there all in one fell swoop, but I'm very proud of the progress that's being made," he told Merkel at the White House.

But Obama also implicitly acknowledged worries that the bill would hamstring the US economy and send jobs fleeing to China and India, rising economies that are also major polluters.

He said he would "work with the emerging economies, which have enormous potential for growth but unfortunately also have enormous potential for contributing to greenhouse gases, so that their obligations are clear."

Critics of the bill, chiefly Republicans, charged in an often heated debate that the legislation would send energy costs skyrocketing and kill jobs in the midst of an already painful recession.

"India and China will not shatter their own economies with this sort of scheme, and its nonsensical for America to impose a job killer like this on ourselves," said the number two House Republican, Representative Eric Cantor.

The US Environmental Protection Agency released a study this week showing that implementing the legislation would cost 80-111 dollars per US household per year, while the Congressional Budget Office says it would run about 175 dollars.