Senate Democrats launched a new effort Tuesday to reclaim the political initiative in the climate change debate and create a sense of urgency about mitigating the causes of the planet’s warming atmosphere.

The ultimate goal of Democrats on the Senate Climate Action Task Force is to shift the politics of climate change back in favor of legislating a price on greenhouse gas pollution — for the first time since legislation to cap carbon emissions collapsed in the Senate in late 2010.

Republicans, including a sizable group that rejects the scientific consensus that human activities are warming the planet, captured control of the House in midterm elections that year. Ever since, Democrats have been looking for a strategy to put climate change back on the congressional agenda.

Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, a co-chairman of the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change, said the campaign will be coordinated with businesses, universities and other nongovernmental groups to counter fossil fuel industry opposition to taxing or capping carbon emissions.

“We’re very realistic politicians,” Boxer said Tuesday. “We understand that the makeup of Congress now is making it very difficult for us to pass climate change legislation, but we will not sit back and give up. … We will raise the visibility of this issue with the intent of changing minds around here.”