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US President-elect Barack Obama has named his energy and environmental chiefs and vowed a new dawn for US leadership to combat climate change after eight years of Republican foot-dragging.
Obama nominated Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu as his energy secretary, placing the expert in renewable energy on the frontlines of climate change policy and ending the nation's dependence on foreign oil.
"This will be a leading priority of my presidency and a defining test of our time. We can't afford complacency nor accept more broken promises," the president-elect told a news conference on Monday.
"We won't create a new energy economy overnight. We won't protect our environment overnight. But we can begin that work right now if we think anew and if we act anew," he said.
Joining Chu will be Lisa Jackson, chief of staff to the New Jersey governor, as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Obama also appointed Carol Browner, who served as EPA administrator under President Bill Clinton, to the new job of White House 'climate czar' overseeing the battle against global warming.
And Nancy Sutley, a senior adviser to Obama's transition team, was named chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Despite an economic recession hitting the United States, Obama is promising to unwind the environmental policies of President George W Bush, whose refusal to ratify the Kyoto pact on climate change disgusted green campaigners. | 
