US President-elect Barack Obama named the key players of his energy and environmental team Monday, promising both to revive the struggling US economy and revamp the country's approach to global warming. According to DPA, Obama named Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and leading voice on alternative energy, to head the Department of Energy. He named Lisa Jackson, the New Jersey governor's chief of staff and a former leader of the state's climate policy, to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Obama also named Carol Browner to a new White House position coordinating climate and energy policy. Browner led the EPA under former president Bill Clinton. Obama said seeking alternative energy solutions and weaning the US off its dependence on foreign oil would form the cornerstone of his policy both to stimulate an economy in recession and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming. "There is not a contradiction between economic growth and sound environmental practices," Obama said at a Chicago press conference, promising to harness alternative energy to create millions of new jobs in the United States. Obama promised a renewed focus on climate change over the course of his presidential campaign, pledging to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020 and a further 80 per cent by 2050. Obama's creation of a new White House post to oversee environmental policy "reflects a deep commitment to leadership on climate change," said Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund.
