US President-elect Barack Obama has named two members of his team that will be charged with tackling energy and climate change.
Despite speculation that Al Gore and Arnold Schwarzenegger might be on the team, Obama has instead gone for physicist and Nobel Laureate Steven Chu as energy secretary and Nancy Sutley as head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Chu, who is currently director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is a strong advocate for energy efficiency and renewables.
Sutley is currently deputy mayor of Los Angeles and has been instrumental in the city’s plans to transform itself into the country’s greenest big city.
According to reports in the US press, Obama is also to appoint Carol M. Browner to a key White House role in climate and energy policy and Lisa P. Jackson as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The environmental and renewables sectors have welcomed the moves.