WASHINGTON — Vice President Gore’s chief congressional critics were waiting when he brought his campaign to combat climate change back to Capitol Hill yesterday. But the almost-president and newly crowned Oscar winner largely refused to take the bait.

Criticizing Mr. Gore’s claims of a “planetary emergency” as misleading and alarmist, Senator Inhofe, a Republican of Oklahoma, sought to make a spectacle out of Mr. Gore’s much-hyped visit to the Senate. He confronted the former Democratic presidential nominee with skepticism about global warming and even demanded that Mr. Gore take a pledge not to consume more energy in his home than the average American household.

Mr. Gore did not return fire. He did not respond directly to the pledge but insisted that he and his wife, Tipper, live a “carbon neutral life.” The proposal follows stories questioning the energy efficiency of Mr. Gore’s Tennessee mansion.

Returning to the Senate for the first time since he presided over the chamber as vice president, Mr. Gore sat calmly through 15 minutes of mostly hostile commentary by Mr. Inhofe, drawing chuckles from the packed hearing room when he repeatedly thanked the senator for his questions.

“I’m sitting here thinking what I could possibly do or say to reach out to you on this,” Mr. Gore told Mr. Inhofe, the former chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee who has previously called global warming a “hoax.” Mr. Gore eventually settled on inviting the senator to have coffee with a mutual friend, an offer that Mr. Inhofe accepted at the end of his remarks.

Mr. Gore’s testimony before separate House and Senate panels, coming weeks after a victory for best documentary at the Academy Awards and amid lingering speculation that he may yet be plotting to run for president a third time, did not lack for drama. Using language and themes familiar to viewers of his film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” he cast the challenge of global warming in dire terms. “We are facing a planetary emergency,” he said. “I’m fully aware that that phrase sounds shrill to many people’s ears, but it is accurate.”

Imploring the new Democrat-led Congress to act, Mr. Gore presented a series of proposals that he said were “practical as well as aiming high.” They included an immediate mandatory freeze on carbon dioxide emissions, an eventual ban on incandescent light bulbs, and exchanging the employment tax for a “pollution tax.”

Mr. Gore faced Republican critics in both the House and Senate, but Mr. Inhofe’s performance was by far the most theatrical. The senator displayed a series of posters expressing doubt about global warming, including one featuring an American flag encased in ice that referenced the recent record snowfall in upstate New York. “Global warming forgot Buffalo, N.Y.,” the poster read.

Mr. Inhofe interrupted Mr. Gore several times, and he bickered about time limits with the new head of the committee, Senator Boxer of California. “You’re not making the rules,” Ms. Boxer snapped at one point to the former chairman. “You used to when you did this, but you don’t do this anymore.”

Several Republicans praised Mr. Gore for his work on climate change, including the man who occupies the seat he once held in Tennessee, Senator Alexander. Others said his proposals for capping carbon dioxide emissions would harm the economy, a suggestion Mr. Gore sought to refute.

“If we go about it the right way, we can strengthen the economy while we reduce carbon dioxide,” he said.

He said he thought nuclear energy would play a “small part” in reversing global warming, a position that did not sit well among Republicans who have promoted it as crucial to any climate change solution.

Among Democrats, the Senate hearing amounted to a reunion. Seated side by side were the former first lady during Mr. Gore’s vice presidency, Senator Clinton, and his running mate in 2000, Senator Lieberman of Connecticut. Mr. Lieberman said Mr. Gore’s effort on the environment may turn out to be his “greatest service” in a long public life.

Mrs. Clinton also praised Mr. Gore, but with the prospect of a future campaign against him not ruled out, she stuck to policy talk and made little mention of their years in the White House. She said his proposals were “extremely intriguing,” leaving open the question of whether any of them will wind up on her own platform as she runs for the Democratic presidential nomination.