Obama names climate and energy appointments

US president-elect Barack Obama yesterday announced two key appointments to his energy and climate change team. While the new appointees have extensive experience of climate change science and Californian environmental policy, speculation that Al Gore and Arnold Schwarzenegger could join the administration proved wide of the mark.

Obama instead named Steven Chu, the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as his energy secretary, and Nancy Sutley, deputy mayor of Los Angeles for energy and environment, as head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

The moves were broadly welcomed by green groups who will welcome the appointment of figures who boast some heavyweight environmental credentials.

Chu, a Nobel prizewinner for his work on supercooled atoms, is a well-known advocate of reducing carbon emissions and has sponsored research into biofuels and solar energy.

He is also a supporter of the latest climate change science and recently said in an interview with the Copenhagen Climate Council that if concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were to rise over 500 parts per million, there is a serious risk of triggering runaway climate change.

Chu will be responsible for the maintenance of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, as well as for modernising the nation's electrical power delivery system. He will also play a key role in directing research into alternative energy sources.

Meanwhile, Sutley was recruited to turn LA into "the greenest big city in America" and has hands-on experience of California's pioneering climate change legislation. She was also responsible for retrofitting 500 of the city's oldest buildings to make them more energy efficient and imposing environmental standards on new commercial buildings.

According to the New York Times, the president-elect is also set to name Carol M Browner – the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator under President Bill Clinton – as the top White House official on climate and energy policy and Lisa P Jackson – New Jersey's commissioner of environmental protection – as the new head of EPA. The appointments will reportedly be confirmed as early as next week.

Browner is a well-connected Washington player, married to a congressman, and a former aide to Al Gore, and both she and Jackson have reputations for imposing tough environmental regulations on industry.

The US press has widely interpreted the appointments as an indication that Obama is serious about reducing US emissions.